Dark Angel: Refracted
by uniquename056
Summary: Season 1 re-booted. AU. Max doesn't escape Manticore as a kid but still ends up in Seattle aged 18 anyways. In this alternate version of her life, she's hunting down Ben rather than running from Lydecker. Read for a twisted but strangely familiar trip the navigates through the DA universe - Eyes Only, Jam Pony, rogue family members amongst a completely different set of problems. Un
1. The Operation

_Somehow, despite logging in yesterday, I can't remember my password and there's a problem with that e-mail address so my Shadow000 is basically off limits for me for now. So, here is a new account. I want to upload the revamped version of my story **Bait**. _

452, having completed her most recent Psy Ops session, was being held under observation in med-bay until her EEG reading settled down. She looked pale, exhausted and had swollen, bloodshot eyes but didn't seemed particularly distressed.

Re-conditioning didn't work too well on several X5 units including 452. They submitted to it willingly enough, after all they was bred and trained to be obedient, but the mental re-patterning just didn't stick with some of them.

For 452, it wasn't so much her psychological make-up as her physiological neurochemistry that made her resistant to re-indoctrination. The stressors, psychological and pharmacological, necessary to induce new thinking and behaviours also induced critical seizures. The alternative non-fatal version of reprogramming just wasn't as effective, not for her personality.

Even as a young child, she always watching, listening, evaluating. Not questioning though. At least, not explicitly. This behaviour had been successfully extinguished her. This evidence was enough justify non-termination, proof that she could be permanently modified and controlled with the right handling.

Left unchecked, 452 defaulted back to her normal patterning and behaviour but it was simple enough to schedule regular Psy-Ops top ups required to keep her in line. Then there was a session like this one that went FUBAR and resulted in a grand mal seizure.

452 didn't notice Lydecker straight away when he entered med-bay. Instead, she was staring intently at a half-eaten turkey sandwich as if she could wish it out of existence.

"Good morning, Max," said Lydecker.

452 flinched and would have knocked her tray to the ground except that Lydecker quickly steadied it. The ECG machine attached to her beeped and displayed erratic spikes in her heartbeat. More worryingly, there was a sharp fluctuation in the EEG machine too.

"Good morning, s-s-sir," she said, eying the machines too.

Pushing the issue would certainly only exasperate the stutter so Lydecker let it drop without further comment. Instead, he asked: "How are you doing?"

"Okay," she said, not especially convincingly.

"I want to have a little chat. Off-the-record. Are you up for that?" Lydecker asked, settling down on a chair beside the bed.

Without waiting for her agreement, Lydecker produced a folder containing several pictures of different bodies tattooed with 493's barcode on their neck. 452 flipped through them looking a little wide-eyed and incredulous but didn't say anything.

"Our best intel suggests that 493 will develop into a serial killer and cause considerable damage to Manticore in the process," Lydecker explained. "There are significant resources being put together to stop this. You could be one arm of this operation. Such as assignment would be voluntary. Right now, we're looking for your observations and insights. I'll let you think about it."

* * *

As a rule, Max didn't get long-term undercover operations. Although it was never made explicit, she understood it was because she was too risky. A few years ago, her psy ops handler, Dr. Erikson, explained to her about her fragile neurochemistry and labile behaviour patterns, her special treatment.

"The basic program just doesn't stick with some of you. Exceptions to rule. That's fine. Our other programs, which work beautifully on those outliers, are too brutal with your seizures. No reprogramming, you default to being a feral monster, too much reprogramming you're dead. You see the dilemma here?"

"Yes, sir."

"We compromise," he continued. "Treat you like goldilocks, find the porridge, chair and bed that isn't hot, cold, high, low, hard, or soft. This translates to regular reprogramming, constant low-level drilling. You're hearing 'constant punishment', maybe feel that's a little unfair, but it's really special privilege you've been granted. We decide it's more hassle than its worth? The end. You're _fucked_. Any questions?"

"No, sir."

Max got with the program. It wasn't so bad. She got used to the lingering headaches, the dry eyes, the tremors and the fatigue that never quite vanished from one session to the next.

It was all quite mundane. For convenience, Erikson even gave her the access code and suggested she get settled in herself without needing a guard and technician. It was usually just the two of them, no techs or nurses.

Except the annual intensive session. That was a nightmare. It was the authentic Psy-Ops experience faced by all other X5s, except with the added bonus of nearly fatal seizures that put her in med-bay for days.

Erikson didn't administer these annual sessions, citing inconsistent preferential treatment between X units that he regularly treated and farmed it out to different handler. Standard practice.

Erikson certainly checked out her file though, probably was even bought in to consult when things went sideways. Max didn't ask and he didn't offer this information.

There was no better person to ask about 493 than him even if they didn't have a scheduled appointment. After being released from med-bay, Max let herself into the Psy-Ops department using the access code and tracked him down to kitchen.

"Ah, Goldilocks, social call?" quipped Erikson. He gestured for her to join him in the kitchen, where he was making, of all things, porridge, and looking much too pleased about this.

Max shrugged, feeling tongue-tied, stiff, and slow like she did after intensive Psy-Ops, and didn't obey, not right away.

The kitchen was out-of-bounds.

The gesture was an order.

Mutually exclusive impossible orders to obey.

"I'd offer you some, but it's probably too lumpy for you," he continued, unconcerned about her freezing in the doorway, acting like his usually snarky, casual self.

"Tell you what, I'll make you some hot chocolate," he offered. "You're shaking. If it's physiological, the milk will help you, and if it's psychological, the hot chocolate has magical powers. Let's go to my office."

After Max drank the hot chocolate, Erikson insisted on checking her vitals even though she was wearing a medical wrist band and portable machines. He jotted them down on a post-it and patted her on the shoulder. "You seem fine to me, Goldilocks, why are you here?"

Max handed him the file the Colonel had given her yesterday in med-bay. Erikson flipped through it quickly, as though he had seen it all already and frowned. "How did you get these?"

"Colonel Lydecker, sir."

"Were you asked about 493 in your annual?"

Max shook her head.

"Looks like the Colonel is handling you with kiddie gloves for now," Erikson remarked. "Tell him what he wants to know."

"I don't know anything."

"Or maybe you don't know what you know," Erikson countered. He drummed his fingers on the file and looked thoughtful.

"Okay, don't freak out, these killings have elements of a superstitious ritual that we can trace back to your unit. The missing teeth. It was this weird fluke operant conditioning thing developed in your unit," said Erikson.

Max nodded, matching his words with fuzzy static-y memories.

"Interesting, psychologically, but it was extinguished in most of you fairly readily. 493, I suspect, is undergoing that extinguishing now with the frantic burst of behaviours. The question is how much damage he'll do before it stops? And, knowing his pattern, can we get to him sooner? This is where you might come in. You will know much more about the story. Think about it. Tell him."

"I mean, _yeah_ , but…I don't want to get into trouble. Special privilege, too much hassle, you're fucked etc."

The monologue had made an impression on her.

"You feel you're in a tricky spot, damned if you do, damned if you don't," Erikson surmised. "How about, you keep your secrets, no need to share, but you solve the 493 problem without back up? I'll handle your mental fallout like I did before and you'll be back to yourself in no time."

"You can't promise _any_ of that," said Max, shaking her head, not even considering the possibilities, just hearing the sheer implausibility of it all.

She wasn't even cleared for basic undercover operations let alone a black operation like this.

Max did micro operations, basic security and babysitting jobs for the rich and paranoid. These usually amounted to her looking pretty and unthreatening in a nice dress at fancy functions while keeping an eye out. Regularly enough, she was drafted by the FBI or CIA to be a teenage human prop for a few days.

"I can ask and you know that I'll ensure things proceed on the agreed terms whatever they may be." Erikson picked up his phone and looked at her expectantly, waiting for the answer.

"I-I don't know, please, don't," Max pleaded.

Max was finding it very hard to breath all of a sudden. Like there was no oxygen in this room. It felt a bit like being under water. The words were distorted and muffled. Her head was pounding too.

"Calm down, Goldilocks," said Erikson. He dropped the phone and had his hands raised passively, unthreateningly, in the air. "Breathe. Don't make me whip out the cliché paper bag or oxygen mask."

Once Max had obeyed, Erikson resumed their previous conversation without any commentary on the panic attack.

"You have a couple options here. Pretend like none of this is happening is _not_ one of them."

"Fine," Max muttered. "Call him."

* * *

452, although released from med-bay, was still under significant observation. She wore a mobile EEG headset, finger tip oxygen monitor, portable heart monitor and medical sensor band. She was sitting cross-legged in the chair across from her Psy Ops handler with her back to the door.

Dr. Dean Erikson was as much as godsend as he was a pain in the ass. Erikson had apparently never heard a rule that he liked and went out of his way to disregard regulation but Lydecker couldn't argue with the effective results the man produced.

452 immediately stood at attention and saluted when Lydecker joined them. It was awkward gesture while wearing a headset and pulse monitor, but she managed it smoothly enough. Although Lydecker noted the tremor still in her hand and the color drained from her face after she jumped up so quickly.

"At ease," he instructed. He gestured back at the chair. "Sit."

452 sank back down. Lydecker sat on her other side. He spotted the telltale open file on Erikson's desk, confirming that they had been discussing 493.

"I see you've looked at the file," Lydecker commented mildly. "Anything to share about why X5-493 is running around murdering civilians?"

"Lousy childhood?" she mumbled.

Lydecker ignored the attitude. "Do you empathize? Same childhood, same chemical imbalances."

"No sir," she said, subdued.

"I suspect 493 has always been a little bit more bloodthirsty, whereas 452 is…squeamish," Erikson offered.

"Squeamish?" she echoed, a little indignant.

"Sensitive, fragile, you know what I mean," said Erikson, dismissively. "Don't look so surprised. Why don't you think you haven't been up for assassinations? I'm not saying you can't or won't, I'm sure you would, but it would upset your mental patterning. You won't develop 493's murderous tendencies, even if you had the opportunity like he has to physically manifest it. I'd guarantee it."

Erikson had already reassured Lydecker of this fact. He had speculated the psychosis was isolated to 493 only and didn't express concern about the other escapees. Or, at least, any concern greater than them roaming unmanaged as they already were doing.

"Because 452 is so _delicate_ , I recommend her role be minimal or completely autonomous in the 493 situation," said Erikson.

452 bristled at the word 'delicate' but kept her mouth shut this time. Erikson was goading her, manipulating her under the guise of his casual messing, just like he promised Lydecker yesterday. He had never used these sorts of terms to describe her personality before. He chose 'perceptive', 'discerning' and 'introverted' instead and rounded it off with 'wilful' and 'reactionary'.

"Surely autonomously is the worst solution for a fragility? Sounds like a protocol for being overwhelmed and incapable," Lydecker argued.

"Fortunately, you've trained her to be resilient despite her sensitivity," Erikson acknowledged. "She will manage quite effectively, if she can personally control things, but nonetheless will find it distressing and need considerable support and re-education to regain her approved optimal mental patterning."

452 was studying Erikson, head cocked to the side, and looking thoughtful, if a little annoyed, but nodded in agreement.

"You're proposing all or nothing. What does that mean?" asked Lydecker.

"She goes undercover as a rogue to retrieve 493. Or she forgets this conversation ever happened," said Erikson. "I do see your point about moderate contribution being reasonable but 452 isn't much one for moderation or being reasonability. It will backfire."

"You understand, Max, that you're uniquely qualified to handle his situation and also fuck up?" asked Lydecker.

Here was the sensible opportunity to back down. But 452, with her reactionary tendencies and impulsive streak a mile wide, was incapable of taking this course of action after Erikson's goading, after years of only getting short-term jobs and being passed over for undercover operations, final given an opportunity to regain Lydecker's approval.

"I'll do it," 452 said quietly. Clarifying, she added. "Retrieve 493, sir."

 _So what do you think? For this version, I really wanted to play up the more subtle insidious brainwashing happening at Manticore. I think this explains how Max in this story (and many other soldiers like Alec in canon) could be loyal to Manticore without being stripped of their personalities. They're definitely indoctrinated, just not quite as excessively as Brin. For Max, it might look something like this._


	2. The Normal Deal

"What are the rules?" Erikson asked Max, fitting a med band on her wrist.

It looked like a fit-bit, had the logo and all, but it was wolf in sheep's clothing in that sense. For starters, it was designed from weird polymer material so it pretty difficult to apply and remove. Not that she need to because the battery was basically indefinite. It recorded steps, sure, but it really was there to monitor her vitals and track her if she went off-grid.

"Stay in Seattle. Wear the med band. Check in after a month. Don't fuck up," Max recited.

"If you fuck up?"

"Contact base immediately."

"What constitutes fucking up?"

"Letting 493 get away. Endangering op-sec. Defection."

"Good. How about liaising with the rogues?"

This was a trick question. "Um, no? Sir?"

"That's right. Unless they infect you with their lies. It's risky. So avoid them. But you do not need to retrieve them. Not a priority. Once the mission is up, you can report their information and someone else will take over. Again, we don't expect any information. Your focus is 493."

"Yes, sir."

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine," she lied.

He smirked. "Your pulse is elevated and your pupils are dilated, your anxious as fuck, but sure, call that fine if you'd like but I'm not buying it."

Max glared at him. Why ask the question if he already knew? Sometimes it was like he was in her head, which actually was probably his job description, but it was still freaky.

"Fine, I'm anxious to impress Colonel Lydecker with this successful mission," Max reframed.

"He'll be happy to hear that," said Erikson. "Check this wrist band feels okay?"

She wriggled her wrist about experimentally and nodded.

"Looks like you're good to go. Anything else? Speak now or forever hold your peace."

"I'm good."

The first month was dedicated towards assembling the bits of her rogue life in Seattle, a city that Ben was predicted to hit up soon, and make herself into attractive and authentic psychopath/rogue bait.

These parameters were so stupidly loose that Max decided to join a dance school. She lied and pretended to be 16 so she could join the serious pre-pro teen classes that trained for 18 hours a week do the cool stuff after watching a bunch of crappy dance movies and deciding that it seemed like the next best thing to flying.

All her ballet experience came from a few hours of lessons in training to be an ice-skater for one of her first jobs where she faked being a serious ice-skater for a week. The ice-skating version of ballet, it turned out, didn't quite hold a candle to ballet version.

The discipline, hard work and intensity that she hadn't appreciated turned out to be exactly the things that kept her there and not so much the tricks and the feeling of flying. In all the chaos of the outside world, it kept her balanced, felt like a slice of normality. There were the uniforms, the rigid schedule, the scary teachers, and sense of working towards something.

That was just for fun (and, she supposed, her mental sanity too). For, the operation she found a job in a dodgy pawnshop and dragged up dusty and half-forgotten memories from her childhood while pursing various articles and books of psychopathy and trying to feel like a rogue looking over shoulder and staying on the radar.

Needless to say, she wasn't making any major progress, not until one day when a customer took notice of the thesis she was reading.

"Nice book," remarked the guy. He was looking to buy a counter-top fan. He'd been in twice before, just browsing during Max's shift and attempting to haggle yesterday with her boss, Harry.

"Thick glasses, terrible vests, pain in the ass. Tell him to go to Hell, that he's not getting a single extra cent off," Harry had warned.

Max got verbal updates like this or post-its stuck on the til regularly. Since day one, Harry encouraged her to work on her bad attitude, develop it into something much worse.

"Bad cop, bad, cop," was Harry's business motto. "Keep looking like a good cop though, it throws them off, gives them the idea they can con you, when that's really our game play."

"Nice face," Max sneered without looking up from the thesis.

It seemed like a strange business strategy, but Max wasn't bought up to question things like this, especially if they seemed to work effectively. They were the type of orders she could get on board with.

"Pyschopathic personality in adolescence – genetic and environmental influences," the guy read, plucking the book out of her hands. He squinted at her. "You not a bit young to be a grad-student?"

"What would you know about grad school?" asked Max. She snatched the book back and put it down behind the counter away from his grubby hands.

"I have several doctorates," he said like they were as easy as having seven kids or shoes.

Max laughed. His expression didn't change. He was being serious. She looked him up and down. He _did_ look like a book person. It was a bit rich for him to call her young. He looked about thirty, which worked out about right for one doctorate but several placed him as a child prodigy in grad school.

"Well, _Doctor_ ," she drawled, "with all due respect, what the hell are you doing here looking for a cheap fan"

He sneered. "A doctorate won't get you out of this job, not a wishy-washy psychology one. My advice is to quit while you're ahead _Missy_ , spend that tuition money on a motorcycle. Be more use to you."

"Plan B is taking up applied self-directed psychopathy," Max quipped.

He sighed. "Just give me the damn fan."

"Seeing as you asked so nicely," Max muttered and set about organising the sale. No haggling. Just resignation. Summer in Seattle was sticky and hot; the fan was worth its price.

He paid full-price, and said that one of this messengers would collect in tomorrow. He tossed a creased business card on the counter. Ronald Regan, Jam Pony Express.

"Oh and, that author has been largely discredited. The thesis is a disaster. Small N numbers, poorly matched controls, inappropriate statistical tests, falsified data, plagiarised work – it got nothing right. I wouldn't waste your time," he called over his shoulder.

It seemed awfully convenient that an expert with several doctorates under his belt would casually wander into the shop and leave with this insight. But it was also far too blatant to be a message from Lydecker.

"Think of it as Black-ops," Lydecker had said before she left. "Off-the-books. Too many of the escapees have slipped by fingers through leaked information. As far as they're concerned, you're the real deal, one of them."

If Regan wasn't Manticore, who was he? He was potentially a very interesting person to know, someone that could see things and make connections that Max could not. He was also the type of guy that could sell her out in a heartbeat. This meant Max had a side mission: get the low-down on Doctor Ronald Regan.

* * *

Regan went by Normal these days. It was a sarcastic moniker bestowed on Regan by one of his employees and had stuck. Regan wouldn't know normal if it came up to him with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence chatting about the weather and football pre-Pulse. He was an awkward outcast then, a controversial academic figure, and now an overqualified misfit, running a haphazard courier service.

None of his academic work specialised in psychology or psychiatry. His advice didn't stem from expertise, which focused on linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, and theology, but rather a general interest. It turned out to be spot-on too. He knew his stuff alright. Max spent hours pouring over Normal's life and work, trying to get into his head as a stepping-stone to get into Ben's head.

All she got was a vague conspiracy theory that Jam Pony was actually a sociology experiment Normal was both running and participating in and would end up in a journal in next few years. This, Max knew, was slightly crazy. It meant she had to stop reading and go visit Normal. Get facts.

"Not hiring. I've got enough deadbeat, no-good bums," said Normal, not bothering to glance up from his clipboard.

"Nice fan," said Max, angling it slightly so she could catch the cool air.

Normal slapped her hand away and re-positioned the fan towards himself. He looked up and scowled seeing Max. "It's mine," he said possessively.

Max held her hands up. "Yeah, whatever. And I'm not looking for a job either. I hear the boss is a jerk."

"What do you want?"

"Your brain," said Max. "You were right. I'm not a grad-student, but I am someone with a professional interest in psychopathy and you seem like an interesting person."

"You're not a grad-student, and you're not just a shop girl. What are you?"

"A genetically engineered Frankenstein killing machine," said Max sarcastically.

Normal rolled his eyes, but his eyes flickered off to the side, as if turning this over in his head as a possibility. He looked her up and down and shook his head, this possibility dismissed as crazy. Not so smart after all then.

"Why would I help you?" he asked after a pause.

Max shrugged. "Boredom? Curiosity? I don't know. Quid pro quo. Name your terms."

"Come back at 7 after business and we'll discuss it then," Normal said, hedging his bets.

He would agree. They both knew it. He had nothing better going on in his life. The only question was what he needed from Max. He'd probably have a couple of interesting ideas by closing, but nothing that Max couldn't handle.

"Alright," said Max.

* * *

Normal inherited Jam Pony from his father, who had died of a heart attack. He wouldn't have kept the place, but one couldn't afford to be picky in the aftermath of the Pulse. He figured he could keep it and run it until he could find a better job. Nine years later it was a life sentence. He never quite left academia, keeping up with new articles and work in his various fields, with the vague aim of publishing again someday.

This was why he recognised the thesis that girl in the pawnshop was reading. He was more intrigued by her though. Not the usual pawn shop employee. There was something markedly off about her. More clean-cut than the type that feed off the misery of others. It was the way she moved, the way she held herself, graceful and poised, deliberate and refined, like she was a ballerina or ninja. Maybe she was a psychopath in making or an intense method-actor.

Without a doubt, she was trouble and this gut feeling was confirmed when she appeared in Jam Pony with a business proposition. Trouble with a capital T, which he had plenty of already, but he was intrigued.

It was a joke, a throwaway comment – Frankenstein assassin. The sort of nonsense his employees invented to explain their absences and lateness. What if it wasn't? There was something preternatural about her even before this sarcastic comment. That's why Normal agreed to meet her later, see if he could suss out her back-story.

"She new blood?" asked Sketchy, checking out the girl as she sauntered out the door. He was half-slouched on the counter and slack-jawed.

"Something like that," Normal dismissed. He checked his clipboard and tossed a package at Sketchy. "Hot run, sector two. Get going."

He was half-distracted throughout the day and found himself with a backlog of receipts to be handled once he was alone. He didn't even notice to girl's arrival just that he once looked up and she was there, perched on the counter with her legs swinging, looking distracted.

"What's your name anyway?" he asked.

She didn't react for a long moment, and then: "I'm Max."

It was the sort of reaction that made her answer seem like a lie – the hesitation, the blankness – but the name rolled off her tongue easily. Max was a strange one alright. It wasn't a hard question; if she wasn't lying, why the pause? It probably was lie.

This was okay though. Normal just needed a name, to stop thinking of Max as just her or girl. A name established trust and rapport, key tools for getting to the bottom of her back-story.

"Give me your pitch, so I know what I'm working with," Normal said.

"There's this guy, let's call him Ben, he used to work for a particular facility and went rogue awhile back. He's been killing people and I'm looking for him," said Max.

A top-secret government facility. Messed up ex-agents. A manhunt. Normal would buy this. But how did Max enter the equation? She was awfully young to be an agent or analyst. She probably wouldn't involve an outsider like himself either.

"What does that make you?"

"His sister."

"Are you trying to protect him or capture him?"

Max flinched and looked down at her feet. "I want Ben to be safe. If he stopped this, laid low, they might go back to not prioritising him again."

This was dangerous territory. Stuff that Normal knew better than to get caught up it. He was a sucker for conspiracies and drama though. This was a by-product of too much bad TV while writing up various theses.

"What do you need me for then?"

"The plan is to lure him to Seattle and talk sense into him," said Max. "You sound like you might have ideas on how to achieve both of these things.

It was a stupid, misguided plan. Getting him into town was do-able, but stopping the brother? Not a hope. Desperate people didn't always see things clearly, even if they were armed with the relevant knowledge.

Max was a kid really. In over her head. It was as ruthless to let her walk away as to exploit this. Except the latter would benefit Normal. Get brother Ben to Seattle and Normal could turn him in, get some cash for his troubles and maybe a ticket into a better job.

"I might," said Normal. "I'll need to know specifics."

"You'll get them if you agree," said Max.

This was fair enough. It would be reckless for Max to put all her cards on the table too soon. Honestly, it was reckless even approaching him, but desperate people were often reckless.

It was probably reckless for Normal to strike up this alliance, but wasn't everyone a bit desperate these days?

"I agree."

* * *

"You never said what you wanted from this arrangement," Max reminded Normal.

"Work for me," said Normal.

"In Jam Pony?" Max clarified. She liked well-defined terms and roles. He could mean housekeeper, personal assistant, or any number of other sleazy tasks. Not that sleazy was a deal breaker, but no need to sign up for that if she could do something more honest.

"Yes. Not as a messenger, but manager. Part time," said Normal.

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, huh?" asked Max.

Not that they were enemies exactly. For her, Normal was a person of interest, but she was hardly an innocent stranger to him. Her brother was a serial killer. That shit was often genetic. You play it careful with relatives.

"It's convenient. It makes these little meetings legit and boring rather than something scandalous. I've been meaning to scale back my responsibilities, get an extra set of hands in, while you're around you'll do."

"Yeah alright," said Max. "I'll need to give Harry a week's notice."

She wasn't that attached to her job at the pawnshop. It was only ever temporary anyway. She'd have to do something to justify the part-time job. School? She could major in human genetics for kicks and giggles or do something related to killers to justify her appearance at Ben's crime scenes. It didn't matter yet. She'd figure it out later.

"That's fine. Drop by tomorrow to sign the contract," said Normal.

It seemed strange that Normal didn't get an internal to act as part-time manager. Getting someone completely unqualified and inexperienced in off the streets seemed outrageous, but the staff didn't seem to care very much or that was the impression Max got the next day filling out the paper work.

"You don't look like a smuck. How did Normal convince you to take this job?" asked a floppy haired lanky guy, Sketchy.

"It's a decent job," said Max.

"Yeah, if your last job was working for the devil himself."

This wasn't that far from the truth. Lydecker nicely fit the role of the devil in the hell that was Manticore. Normal might be annoying and smug but he wasn't a bad person. At worst, verbal abusive and uncompassionate, but that was Lydecker in a happy fun mood.

"If it's that bad, why don't you look for a new job?"

"Original Cindy hates to burst your bubble, sugga, but we're all looking for new jobs," chimed in a second voice. It was a tall woman with an afro and an apparent tendency to speak in third person.

Sketchy nodded. "I'll give you two days of putting up with abuse from Normal, customers and us for crappy pay before you get what we're saying."

"Forewarned is forearmed," said Max. Max finished off the final bit of her paperwork and returned it back to the Normal, at the dispatch counter. "Contract. Sector pass. Application form. Aptitude quiz. Liability form. Gag agreement. All signed in duplicate. Do you want a personal statement too? It wasn't this hard getting into university."

"Speaks of the quality of university you attend," said Normal distractedly. "And the quiz was a trick. I didn't think you'd fall for the personal essay but I would love a piece on how your family made you who you are today since you're up for it."

Thinking back, she had thought it was weird quiz with tenuous links to the job but didn't care enough to question it. How had she not copped it was a psychological assessment? She spent her whole life being assessed so either she was was clued in or gullible and it looked like it was the latter. How dumb was she that she could identify a test?

"Huh, guess you would actually, and I grossly overestimated you," Normal sneered. "You can read and got a G.E.D so you've got most of this lot beat anyway."

"Hey Normal, we can read, yo, just not your girly curly handwriting," called Sketchy.

Since when was reading and writing cursive a specialist skill? It was one of the more apparently normal things they taught kids at Manticore. It seemed obsolete out in the real world these days. Max filled out the paperwork this way unless it specified capital letters. Mistake number one. She was already an imposer and she hadn't started yet. For all the strange skills they taught at Manticore, they didn't do a good job on how to be normal.


	3. Predicting Psychopaths

_Any preference for narrators? The next chapter, Max meets Logan. There are 2 scenes both from her perspective but I'm thinking the second one might interesting from his view. It seems a little redundant to write the same scene twice but maybe I'll do bonus interludes._

 **Max**

"Let's just address some of the basics first, some of the key characteristics and risk factors for serial killers and psychopaths. You're blaming it on this facility, but it was probably something always there ready to be triggered. We find the trigger, we find his motivation and the pattern and then Ben. I need an idea of who he is and why and how."

"Okay. Shoot."

Without the whole truth, Normal was only reinventing the wheel, adding an extra person going around in circles trying to figure out Ben. It was better than nothing. He was an unbiased outsider, he might notice some extra detail or make connections that she could not.

"Was Ben adopted? Physically or emotionally abused by your parents? A bed-wetter? Above average intelligence?"

Normal rattled out the questions and waited with his pen poised over a notepad for Max's answers. He gestured impatiently with his hand. "Simple yes no questions. Keep up."

"No. Um, yeah I guess. It's complicated, but yeah it probably falls under abuse. No to the bed wetting, but wicked smart," said Max after a delay.

She shifted and toyed with her sleeve hems. She wasn't just telling Normal about Ben. By extension, she was revealing herself and it made her vulnerable. She didn't want his pity.

"You don't feel these urges do you? Or feel like you were born with a part of yourself missing? It can be his genetics or up-bringing thing or both. Any family history of violence or murder?"

"No…"

Not yet anyway. Ben could be the sole anomaly, or they might all be ticking time bombs ready to implode. That day in the woods got very messy. Lydecker himself was disturbed. It never happened again. Not like that. Max had written it off as a fluke. She couldn't speak for the others, but she didn't enjoy killing. But then again, Erikson snidely called her sensitive and fragile, so maybe she was the outlier in that sense.

"Hmm. Were the victims vulnerable people like runaways or prostitutes? Were they completely unconnected to Ben? Was the method of killing symbolic?"

"No, yes and yes."

"Elaborate."

"They were just normal people with families, jobs and friends. Different ages, genders, races, socio-economic status, hobbies, but you know, regular folk. I don't know think Ben knew them. Otherwise the organisation would have tracked them down already. It's a very distinctive killing, but I can't really tell you what."

"Right. Did he hear voices or have an obsession with anything? Pornography? Clowns? God? Maths? Trains? Authority figures? Anything? Suffer any childhood traumas or imaginary friends?"

"No voices. There was this thing though. A woman in a picture. She wasn't an imaginary friend. She didn't talk or exist really. It was like an idea or a myth. It was pretty important to him.

These were exactly the memories Max was shying away from. They were fuzzy, badly formed, and itchy. They didn't sit right in her mind, which meant that there has been so Psy-Ops tampering going on and she was scratched at the scab.

"That's it. Everything he is doing, it's because of this woman," said Normal.

"He described her as honourable and strong and pure. She wasn't exactly an evil sinister presence. It was harmless," Max protested.

She wasn't disagreeing as such. The teeth made it pretty clear that it was related to the Blue Lady, but Max didn't get it. The Blue Lady was their version of the tooth fairy. They believed for a while and then they grew up. It was a nice story. It wasn't one that led onto someone ripping other people's teeth out. Except in Ben's head that was. How did that happen?

"And then he grew up and she changed. Memories and ideas are vulnerable. You said that they did something to him. It's probably a side effect."

They were all treated the same. Manticore was equal opportunities in that way, no favourites or victims. Or, at least, her unit was treated the same. There were different standards amongst units resulting in different training and expectations, but this was between and not within units. If Manticore were to blame, all her former unit would be on the same slippery slope as Ben, including Max herself, but Erikson seemed to disagree on this premise. That meant it was something on the outside that set Ben off.

"There were others too. They believed in the woman. For a while anyway. They seem to be okay," said Max. She wasn't sure how to phrase this without implicating herself or inventing a whole bunch of siblings that would stretch the credibility of her back-story.

"People are different. Identical twins sharing a bedroom, for example, same genetics and environment, one of them is schizophrenic and the other healthy. Or one is an athlete and the other a scientist. Tell me the myth."

Max hesitated. "I can't. I'm could be putting you in danger by saying anything let alone going into specifics."

"I'm an adult. I can make that call for myself. It's my life to endanger," said Normal.

There it was. Permission to kill him for getting in too deep. She didn't have to feel guilty now. This was a fun little academic puzzle for Normal. For the first time in years, he could put his sociology and theology expertise into use.

"Don't come crying to me when you're dead then," said Max.

In a way, she wanted to tell someone. It was constantly going around in her head, the same circles over and over again. And she was blinded by Ben's virtue to see events clearly. Normal, however, was an unbiased outsider. It would be easier for him to help her rather than her floundering alone.

Max traced shapes onto the tabletop between them and avoided Normal's stare as she recounted the origins of the Blue Lady. It wasn't the entire truth. She wrote herself out of the story, for starters, but told him about the card, the apparent miracle, the teeth sacrifices and the good and bad places.

As hard as it was to say this to Normal, it was relief not having in buzzing alone in her mind anymore. Someone else knew. Someone else who didn't her her mental problems knew and could tease through the information.

"It's like I was there," said Max, with a half-shrug. "Ben was a born story teller."

Normal was on the edge of his seat, wide-eyed and fascinated. He picked up his pen and scribbled down a few notes, which he'd forgotten to do during story time.

"I don't want to make this about you, Max, but how does that tie into your life? Your family were strong Evangelical Christians. You're saying that you didn't recognise Mary, the mother of God?"

"Your background check was clearly half-assed," said Max, rolling her eyes. "Did you notice the lack of Ben? They wiped him out as if this could make him cease to exist. Rewrote my family history. They made up that stuff. It's like damage control or something. It's not true, it was never true, that's why I'm calling myself a lapsed Christian and ticked the no religion box on your form."

This was a coincidence, completely unrelated to Ben or the Blue Lady, just details of a complex and rich back-story that ought to throw off Lydecker if she were a runaway. Transgenic were invented by man. There was no whitewashing this fact and it was hard to reconcile that with faith.

"The conspiracy grows," Normal murmured. "How come you were able to walk free, knowing all this? You could have gone straight to the media and not just me."

"Because it's crazy. No one would believe me. At best, I'd also get a one-way ticket to the loony bin but more likely I'd be locked up in their facility, at their mercy. I was only there once and I never want to see it again. I never told them all that stuff. And they paid us off, assuming family loyalty only goes so far, especially when that's the skeleton in the closet."

"The victims…they had their teeth ripped out, didn't they?"

"Yeah."

The killings are either testing the faith of others or sacrifices that she calls for," Normal speculated.

"One of the victims was a Pastor. He wasn't Catholic though. The rest were affiliated to varying degrees with different faiths and branches," said Max.

"None of them believe in Ben's exact version, this so-called Blue Lady, so he isn't necessarily targeting those who worship Mary, just those of faith."

Max shrugged. The Blue Lady didn't save Jack or Eva and they had believed. Any further testing seemed redundant. Clearly, it didn't work. Serial killers were supposed to be logical. It didn't add up. This wasn't even considering Ben stamping his barcode on them all. This she couldn't share with Normal.

"You said before that you wanted to be a potential victim, bait. That this was your endgame."

"Yeah."

"You're in luck. That's very achievable, perhaps inevitable, given that you know the true story," Normal predicted.

Max shivered. She hadn't considered Ben tracking down one of the others. It was reckless, they were equipped to fight him unlike the normal people, but it had a certain poetry that seemed to fit in with Ben's MO. And probably something Lydecker and Erikson figured because they always described this job as being bait rather than being a hunter. They didn't exactly spell it out, but maybe Max was just too slow at reading between the lines.

"You got a plan?"

"You need to unlapse. Convert to Catholicism. Use your fabricated history to your benefit. Play up your transfer to a secular school to study science. Can you arrange it that your parents disowned you for this decision?"

Max was two steps ahead of Normal there. This already happened. It wasn't anything to do with Ben. Max just wanted to make her story airtight. Creating an entire family took work so it was easier to cut them off, give them a reason to deny her existence and set them on the other side of the country if anyone went looking. She had toyed with the orphan approach, but it seemed like that would be too obvious for an escapee, surely Manticore had flagged that.

Max nodded. She could get her fake parent's disapproval without any difficulties.

"Good. Join the local religious community. Prayer circles. Retreats. Helping out at homeless shelters. Do it all. Make your presence felt without sacrificing the controversy. You can research that yourself. Ben comes to town and hits the local churches; you want him to hear the gossip about you. The big twist is that this is all nonsense and you're you."

Funny that Max, who spent her life slightly resenting being bossed around, was happy to get this plan. With this, it was like maybe she could pull off this job. She had a fighting chance. She could do all that stuff and Normal seemed to think it could work. Maybe it wouldn't, but it had potential and she had nothing else going on.


	4. Meeting Mr Logan Cale

**Erikson**

452 was glitch-y. She did not function like a typical X5 unit. Then again, creating X5 series was a little more sophisticated than producing replica IPads that came in different colors. Same genetics, same environment, the same precise, stringent scientific and militaristic procedures, and still a spectrum of abilities and personalities emerged. Undetectable differences to many, even to those who should know better, but differences that Erikson saw clearly.

He joined Project Manticore as a consultant less than a week before the runaway incident. He had still been getting up to speed, still waiting for his clearance to come through and so-called special training signed off before being allow to see let alone meet the X5s, when he predicted a breakout attempt.

"If it hasn't happened, I'd give it a year," he said, casually, flippantly. He knocked on a wood and make a joke about it. Then, it happened.

Erikson was 23, newly single and chronically bored. That's why he considered the job. He was promised a stimulating and exciting environment with the world's greatest minds. He didn't buy this. He accepted because of Lydecker who was intriguing enough that Erikson hadn't him basically figured out off-bat. He stayed because the runway paradigm shift gave him a hypothesis, whole bunch of interesting guinea pigs and the all-clear to run an experiment that the half-hoped would join the notorious Stanford prison, Milgrim and Asch experiments in Psych 101.

Lydecker agreed readily enough to his proposal providing that Erikson fulfill some work for him.

Quid pro quo.

Their arrangement included 452. At the time, all that Erikson knew about her was that she one of the runaway X5s that had been successfully retrieved. He got to know her a lot better in the subsequent years. She was one of the X5s intriguing enough to be bothered knowing and difficult enough to keep him interested.

For 452, there was a narrow and instable margin between malfunctioning and magnificent. Fix her completely and risk making her a sub-operational automaton, if not a outright fatality. Leave her alone and risk the outright defiance and anarchy. Managed just so, she retained the capabilities and insights that made her such a promising, effective operative while reigning in the willfulness that made her unusable.

This particular job, apprehending 493, cast an unforgiving spotlight on all her flaws but also let her shine as though she was a star on Broadway. And, apparently, she could be just this because when Erikson checked in on her, he saw that she had taken up dancing.

Erikson expected her dancing to be technically near flawless, or certainly working steadily towards getting there. He couldn't predict her capability to pull off of the artistry, the grace and lyricism. One of her first jobs involved going undercover as a pre-pro kid ice-skater at an intensive and her final performance piece had been flat and lifeless. Beautiful, technical, and completely empty.

Same with 494, one of the male Seattle X5s, who had played a piano teacher recently. He wowed his mission handler with his technical skill, but Erikson was unimpressed on the artistry and emotional side. Technique alone was insufficient. Erikson saw right through it and so would most people with musical appreciation. Good enough to fool the targets though. It took the X5 nearly a month to grasp the feeling behind the music right on queue with his decision to defy operational parameters. Interesting that. Erikson kept his observations to himself.

It meant that when Erikson was due to make an appearance in 452's newly fabricated life that it was always going to be at the dance school. He didn't entertain the idea of university or her messenger job. They provided much less insight into her mind. He dropped into a recreational adult contemporary class that she was taking.

"New in town," he announced cheerfully. "Here for work, gone next week, but got the urge to dance."

Just like that, the recreational adult contemporary class that had been turned into 452's ballet private, was back into a class again, but this time a partner class because apparently 452 needed plenty of practice nailing lifts and Erikson, having admitted to being a former dancer, was all too ready to dust off some moves with little coaxing.

It was like riding a bike. Sure, it had been a little over ten years, but it was still there. Not _all_ the strength and flexibility. This withered away after he ditched the teenage competition dance scene. He still knew the rhythm and feeling. It came rushing back.

There was something weirdly reassuring and effortless that it was 452's body right up in his personal space after years away, his hands on her waist supporting her during balancing feats, controlling the momentum in turns and lifting her in the air. Or maybe not that surprisingly. She had spent years putting her mind into his hands, trusting him implicitly like he asked, so he couldn't ask for a better partner.

Neither could 452. He could see exactly when partnering clicked with her, had felt her initial resistance, the block that had been holding her back, felt it unknot as she allowed herself be strong and malleable. From there, she accelerated through basics all the way into intricate complex techniques in the span of the hour right into the Romeo and Juliet pas de deux.

There was an ethereal quality about her dancing, the right combination of technique, vulnerability, confidence and artistry that elevated him to same qualities. It was as though they were actually soul mates desperately in love, not just pretending for an audience, not just learning steps. It made him a better dancer. He hadn't ever been this good before.

Then, they were both right back on earth. 452 was slipping off her pointe shoes, rubbing her feet and finding blood on her tights, and he was guzzling water and catching his breath.

"Great job, guys," said the teacher. "Beautiful connection. Sure, we can't convince you to come back, Dean?"

"Ah, I wish," he said, regretful, explaining, "I travel a lot, next time I'm in town, for sure."

It was a little disappointing, even if it wasn't unexpected, admitting that this was a one-time only experience. They would go right back to being handler and operative. He was already cataloging his thoughts and ideas, refining his appraisal of 452. The genuine human emotion delicately sewn through the artistry in her performance indicated that she on the edge of coming apart. However, her implicit trust in him confirmed her steady alliance. It boiled down to status quo as per usual for 452. Just like he suspected.

"How's it going, Max?" Erikson asked, casually stretching out his calves, while studying 452 closely at the same time. The dance teacher was now on the phone and not paying attention to them.

Max was on the floor, in an over splits, with her feet up on two blocks. "That's really weird," she said, not able to help herself.

"What?"

"You calling me Max. It's usually Goldilocks or 452."

Erikson had pointedly refused to use or acknowledge her chosen name, favoring the professionalism of her designation or making up his own nicknames, anything that didn't have a connection to the runaways. He didn't allow it be a challenge. Win or loose, this would only have reinforced the name, and all the negative behavior and connation associated with it. He knew that that she knew this. It wasn't a secret or a truth.

However, this was the very first time they had broached the issue. How could he avoid it when she was going around calling herself Max, playing a rogue X5?

" _That's_ why you've yet to call me Dean," he teased. "Go on. I know you're super polite with your 'Dr. Eriksons' that are probably just Eriksons in your head but give my first name a whirl."

"Sure, um, Dean," she managed.

Erikson smirked. "That's pretty fucking weird."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. I'd actually be a little worried if you high-fived me and said 'yo what's up big D'. That would be a personality transplant."

"Do you think I'm okay then?" 452 asked, tentatively, rising from her splits to swap legs around. Her left was tighter at the front, not quite reaching the full splits yet, so she had to support herself on her hands. It gave her an excuse not to look at him.

"Do you feel okay?" Erikson asked instead of answering.

"I guess."

"Good enough for me," he said, casually, now onto stretching his hamstrings.

And it was. Erikson insisted on honesty and transparency, especially if it went against the standard Manticore party lines and kept his promises that her sharing would be free from repercussions. It was the most effective method for her. 452 was intuitive enough to tell him exactly what he wanted to hear and play along. Distinguishing this fake behavior from authentic conditioning would have been damn near impossible making re-education ineffective.

"So whatcha been up to?"

"You've been watching if you're here."

"Not really. There's no audio or video, just GPS, and I've been pretty busy doing Psy work at the Seattle base to be worrying about you."

Busy managing 494 who had been carelessly handled by Seattle Psy-Ops team and resistant to Erikson's interventions. It was painstaking and slow but Erikson was getting there, was slowing gaining 494's trust and persuading him to inch out of the mental corner that he had been backed into by his previous handler.

Figuring out what made 494 tick was the main reason Erikson was in Seattle. Between 494's psychopath clone and his own behavioral disturbances that last mission, 494 was quite the mystery to unbox. He was as glitch-y (if not worse) than 452. It was like getting a new toy to play with. Or, more accurately, a half broken toy to put back together and play with.

It made sense to check on 452, reassure her, while he was on in town, but he wasn't especially concerned about her, only intrigued by her life choices.

"I got a job in a messenger service," she explained. "I come here to dance. I'm gonna study genetics as a sophomore now that school had started up and I'm a part of a Catholic congregation here."

"That is both oddly very specific and quite broad," he commented. "Sounds like you're pretty busy managing it all."

"Bigger web, catch more flies," she explained. "It's fine though."

· * * *

 **Max**

It _was_ all completely under control until she met a certain journalist and crusader called Mr. Logan Cale less than a week later. It was all Rob's fault. It was him who dropped her name to the faculty head for the secret life of scientist piece.

"I'm not a scientist," said Max. "I empty bins and clean the windows. The closest I get to science is filling pipette boxes and loading the steriliser."

Rob flapped his hand dismissively. "Details. We'll let you play around some cells and do a Western Blot or PCR before the piece goes to print. That's an experiment. Thus, you are a scientist and extra-credit or something."

"Why me? You've got real scientists. Hundreds of undergrads."

"Because you have a secret life."

"Right. Because I'm a transgenic half-human, half-cat hybrid," said Max.

An eye roll. "The beautiful ballerina bullshit. You were homeschooled, right? Your background is so clean. Where are the stupid teenager pictures? Were your folks scared that the devil might steal your soul if your picture was taken? They can't make you look bad. And you're short and cute. You wouldn't be involved in anything bad."

"I'm not involved in anything bad?"

Not officially. Max wasn't anymore associated with Manticore than Donald Duck. She had gone to great pains to hide this fact aside from the occasional impulsive quip.

"Exactly."

"No I'm not."

"Now you're defensive. Less hostility and more animals frolicking around you in the woods, singing and braiding your hair."

"What's going on, Rob?" Max narrowed her eyes. She was going to ignore that fairytale crap and get to the point of this.

"It's not just a spin piece for publicity. I mean, yeah, that's a big part. The department is contractually obliged to inform the public and show what we're doing, but the guy doing the piece is a bit notorious. He's looking for scandal."

"You do it then. You know a lot more than me," Max said.

For starters, Rob was actually grad student conducting research, whereas she was just clocking up hours for a module / being used as slave labor as a cost cutting measure. At least half of her class had really gotten conned by the module description. If they weren't trusted to do real research, why was Rob pushing her to liaise with the press? It seemed reckless.

"I don't come out during daylight. I murder animals on a daily basis. I read comic books. I look like this," Rob listed matter-of-fact. "I kind of suck _and_ I have something to hide. I'm one of the worst people for the job. You, Max, you are awesome."

"Flattery gets you nowhere, and sarcasm gets you beaten up," said Max. It was hard to tell with Rob sometimes. His default setting was dry and mocking.

"It's a smart career move. You'll get publicity and a good reference from Cohen. That's invaluable for getting funding. You see the economy out there, it's next to impossible to get money for research. That's why you want, right? You've made so much sacrifices to be here that you it would be stupid to throw away a good opportunity."

"You're saying that you already told Prof. Cohen that I'd do it," Max said.

"Kinda."

"You're such a dick."

"Since you're already aware of that you won't be surprised that I will swear blind that you told me you would and then got cold feet. Your word against mine."

"You owe me, Rob," said Max.

Prof. Cohen was _scary_. Not quite Colonel Lydecker scary but not a million miles off it either. She couldn't exactly march down to his office and tell him that Rob lied or that she changed her mind. He had a sword in there and was prone to weird fits. Brilliant, yes, but unhinged. He was the weird scientist stereotype that this article was trying to dismiss.

"Great," Rob beamed.

He reached down into his desk and produced a stack of papers that he plonked into Max's hands.

"You are hereby promoted from toilet cleaning duty to interview prep. Read these properly before tomorrow – there will be a pop quiz. Go see Seth now. He will do the induction and paper work to get you set up in cell culture. We'll get you to make up some stock solutions in the lab afterwards so you'll get to see where stuff is and look like you've been doing science here."

It was only because Max didn't sleep that she managed to accomplish this and juggle dance, church and Jam Pony. The papers were technical and dense, much more advanced than her textbooks. Was all this work really necessary to fool a journalist? Max had done her research on Mr. Cale. He didn't seem _that_ threatening. She didn't know what the big deal was.

In real life he wasn't that threatening. He was in his early 30s, largely wheelchair bound, with rumpled hair, stubble and very white teeth. Harmless.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Cale," Max said, shaking his hand. "My name is Max."

"Max?" Logan glanced down at his notes.

"Ah, Grace Maxine Williams, sir. I go by Max. Long boring story," Max clarified. "I'm an undergrad working in Prof. Cohen's lab."

"I see," said Mr. Cale. "Let's get started then. Firstly, thanks for agreeing to talk to me. I feel like the bogeyman or something, but don't worry I don't bite. It's just a chat. And just 'Logan' is fine."

This was a complete lie. It was an interrogation. Max would know. She had experienced both sides of this several times. Mr. Cale did the small talk and the typical questions about her secret life, her family, her interests and her time in the lab. Interspersed between these were trick questions. He wanted to know about ethics. Animal welfare. Cloning. Human experimentation.

"Have you ever heard of Manticore?"

Max's heart skipped a beat. "Um, no, sir. Sorry. What's that?"

"Just an urban legend," said Mr. Cale, laughing, as if this was a pleasant and light conversation. "Allegedly, it's a top secret military operation, which used recombinant DNA to produce a superior human…a warrior…an advanced infantry solider. What do you think about that?"

"With all due respect, sir, if it's not in a peer-reviewed published journal, I'm not buying it," said Max. "This is science. Not science fiction or mythology."

"Funny that you say that, you are quite a strong Christian. Is God in one of these journals? How can you be a scientist and a believer?"

Actually, Max would rather discuss Manticore than tackle this topic. She wasn't qualified in either descriptions let alone both to comment. Normal suggested controversy and this was the perfect opportunity, but it was delicate. She wasn't touching this with a ten-foot pole.

Max deflected the question, without addressing it at all, and returned to Mr. Cale's story. This was probably his exact ploy and she skipped straight into the trap, but it beat the alternative. "How did you hear about Manticore?"

"Back in '09 just before the Pulse a couple of the kids escaped from the facility. The story goes that they're being hunted down."

"Needle in a haystack."

"Needle in a stack of needles. They've been evading capture for years. They look like you and me except they've got barcodes on their necks and can do amazing feats."

"Good for them. You look for a penpal or a pet or what?"

"An interested party. It would be excellent to get a lab rat perspective on science. Obviously, your animals can't talk, but these folks can, and that's career breaking stuff."

"For selfish reasons," Max mused.

Mr. Cale was smart. Smart enough to find out about Manticore. Smart enough to put two and two together for his own benefit. With transgenic stems cells he would be out of that chair ten times quicker. Quid pro quo. Some blood or bone marrow for money or ID. A desperate runaway might agree. Everyone was a winner.

Only Mr. Cale didn't know how to get in contact with one. Hence, these interviews. He was fishing for information. There was an excellent human genetics hub at the university with renowned researchers. It only made sense that there was some sort of collaboration or sharing of information. Max herself didn't know and didn't care.

"It would be proof to expose Manticore. Shut down their experimentation," said Logan. "It's inhumane that something like that could be happening with our tax dollars and covered up."

Thing was Max was smarter. She could play this to her own benefit. Mr. Cale was apparently a patient-researcher pretending to be animal rights activist pretending to be journalist. It was very too convoluted to arise by chance. There must be a network. Probably Eyes Only. Such a person offered an alternative approach to tracking down Ben. It was good motivation. It was also extra-credit for Manticore purposes.

"Barcode, sir?" she asked.

"Yeah. Black and whites lines. Unmistakable."

"I heard that was a new system for social services monitoring fosters kids," said Max.

Mr. Cale shook his head. "Nah. They can't just tattoo kids like that. It's a cover up."

"It's no greater leap that what you're claiming."

"Who told you this?"

"A kid with a barcode."

"Really?"

"If I was lying, why would I tell you the truth if you asked twice?" Max said. "But yeah. He wasn't super human though. He had like epilepsy or something."

"That fits the story," said Mr. Cale, leaning in, face animated now. "How did you know him?"

"His name was Ben. He was in my church youth group for a couple weeks. I guess he ran away, or got placed into a different foster home. I never saw him again," Max explained. She shook her head. "Why would a kid created by man go to church? It doesn't add up, I think you're clutching at straws."

"His folks were religious. Curiosity. A cover story," Mr. Cale rattled off three reasons. "It sounds like a good fit. Can you draw a picture?"

"Sure, but I won't. Let's say I believe you about all this, which I don't, I would be putting him directly into danger. He was my friend. I'm not doing that."

"If you help me, you can control this," said Mr. Cale. "Look, you said you ended up in Seattle because God had a purpose for you here. What if it's this? Maybe you're supposed to help me."

Mr. Cale with his wide-eyes and passion was persuasive figure. Someone that Max, if she was really who she was pretending to be, was very vulnerable to falling for. He gave her a purpose and importance. It wouldn't be suspicious if she bought his words. It would only be right.

Max agreed.

Confiding one person was reckless, but two was insane. Especially whey they had conflicting stories. It was these sort of chances that would get the job accomplished. Use all available resources. That's what they were taught and that's exactly what she was doing. She just had to keep the plates in the air.


	5. CREAM

_Super long chapter here! It was original two parts but it does just cover one episode so figured I'd stick 'em together. Notice how we jumped past the first three episodes? The pilot already happened before Max got into town, hence Logan already being in a wheelchair, and I figure with recent Manticore meds that Max's safe from heat and and seizures for awhile more so we're temporarily skipping 'Heat' and 'Flushed' and getting straight into 'C.R.E.A.M'._

* * *

 **Max**

"Nice place, Mr. Cale," said Max, following him into his apartment. Out of habit, she scanned the room for all possible exits and escape routes, and then took the time to check out his artwork.

Good cash in some of them. The Bast statue was looking fine. Mr. Cale wouldn't miss that would he? Except now that Max knew Mr. Cale, she couldn't rob him. It wasn't polite. The building was off limits. She didn't need cash right now anyway to justify it.

"It's not bad," said Mr. Cale modestly, shrugging, and didn't spare a second look for his fancy décor. "Four walls and a roof. What more could you ask for, _Miss Williams_?"

"And here was me seeing a penthouse apartment with a skylight in one of Seattle's most exclusive areas, sir," said Max.

Max attended a university – over-privileged rich kids made up 75% of the population. They were mostly all stuck in the same dorms so it was a level enough playing field in terms of luxuries (excluding some fancy tech, but Max had seen all that at Manticore). Out in the real world, this is where and how they ended up.

"I didn't know journalists made this much," she continued. "I might change my major. Scientists earn peanuts."

"We don't, _Miss Williams_. Shares in my family's business does," Mr. Cale explained.

Journalism was just a little hobby when basking in wealth got boring.

"Why did you ask me to come here, sir?"

"You caught me, _Miss_. I thought we'd have some pasta and wine before we talked business," said Mr. Cale, leading them into kitchen, where there was a table set for two and food in preparation.

As a rule, Max didn't turn down free food. Especially not good food, and Mr, Cale was looking to be quite the chef. He was a man of many talents. She nodded and dropped her backpack on the ground with a clunk.

"Sorry why are you calling me Miss?"

"I thought we are in Jane Austen novel, got carried away fancying myself as a Mr. Darcy type figure," quipped Mr. Cale. "Do you have a preferred character? Elizabeth Bennett?"

Max narrowed her eyes at him, knowing he was making fun of her, but not getting the reference. "I haven't read those books."

"They're excellent. I'll lend you Pride and Prejudice," said Mr. Cale, pouring them both a glass of red wine and handing her one, looking entirely too smug and amused about making her uncomfortable.

"Thank you," said Max. She looked down at the glass of wine. "Um, I'm a little too young to drink this."

"The article is submitted, _Miss Williams_ I won't sneak in a dig about under age drinking," said Mr. Cale, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, drinking is considered educational if the alcohol in question costs over 70 dollars a bottle."

Max glanced at the bottle label. Huh. More like 100 dollars. The wine was sharp, dry and unpleasant. Max didn't react to the taste. It wasn't her first time pretending to enjoy wine for a job. It was literally every fancy function she ever attended and she had been at dozens.

"Now that we're drinking together and discussing literature, I think we're kinda friends, right? You can drop the formalities and impeccable manners and just call me Logan and I'll call you Max."

After dinner was eaten and the dishes were cleared away, Max raised the topic of Manticore again: "Not to be a pest, but what's the dealio with Manticore?"

"Still working on it," said Logan. He shuffled through some pages. "You told me that the scientists would need to use surrogate mothers to carry the babies to term. Most likely late teens to early twenties. Each mother would only undergo one pregnancy."

"Yep. Hypothetically," said Max. "It's what the researchers tend to do with their transgenic animals. The optimal breeding period is limited. With humans, longer pregnancy and recovery and supercharged foetuses, it's probably a one-time only experience."

"Right," said Logan. "You guys kill the animals afterwards, yeah? I'm guessing that doesn't work so well with hundreds of women. I'd reckon they stick them in psych wards. Make out the whole experience was a dream."

"Maybe," said Max.

She wouldn't put it passed Manticore to kill off all the surrogates. She couldn't explain this gut feeling to Logan without indicating that she might have insider experience though.

"I've been searching medical records of females approximately twenty years old admitted to psychiatric facilities around the time you Ben was probably born, say 1998-2001 period and cross-referencing these with disappearances of at least 9 months prior to this-"

"Longer. Give it over a year. It's not just wham, bam, thank you ma'am for making babies that way. They'll need a pre-pregnancy period to take readings. Also, getting drugs or sickness out of their systems, assuming Manticore gets these girls from the gutters, alleys and back holes. Plus recovery and weaning. At least a year. Two years tops."

Logan blinked and scribbled some quick notes. "Why would you assume that?"

"If your upper class socialite elite goes missing, there's outcry and a spectacle. Not quite the under radar operation Manticore sounds like. They'll go for girls who wouldn't be noticed missing."

"Okay. I'll change my parameters," said Logan. "I figure the search will come up with a couple of potential Manticore surrogates, drop in and visit, get some details on the facility, where it is, what it was like, that sort of thing."

"So you have nothing yet?" Max surmised.

Perhaps she was too hopeful that Logan might be able to get Ben updates to her quicker than Manticore. For starters, his Manticore investigation was shaping up to be only a little side diversion and was taking a pointless detour via ancient history.

"I'm developing information," said Logan. "You'll be the first to know once I come up with something substantive. Manticore was a covert operation. It's gonna take some time."

"Good thing you've got nothing else going on," said Max flippantly.

Attack the ego, reap results. There was a class on this a Manticore, colloquially known as 'Manipulative Bastard 101'. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't a class like this to be found anywhere in the university prospectus that she browsed.

"What makes you say that?"

"What else are you doing then?" Max challenged.

"What do you think of me? That I hang out in the afternoon in a café someplace wearing 2,000 dollar wristwatches, planning my next vacation, and talking about redecorating the place to match the cat?"

"Something like that."

"I got shot. Blown out spinal cord trying to make a difference in this city, taking down bad guys," said Logan. "I'm part of the Eyes Only informant network. Every streaming video on the TV? That's partially due to me."

"There's hundreds of people trying to make a difference in the city every day. Playing whack a mole with bad guys? Busy glory work. Your choice. Whatever. You could be targeting education and social care too. Better mortality prospects."

"Are you?"

"I do a bit," said Max.

By this, she meant she did a lot more than would like. Charity fell under church stuff. She had to put in appearances at the flavor of the week – homework clubs, Sunday schools, food drives, community clean up, reading to the elderly. An appearance plus a smile.

"A bit?"

"I do what I can on top of full-time college, a part-time job, and part-time research stuff. Until I figure out how to clone myself or give up sleeping altogether, a bit is all I can give," said Max. She paused. Then added: "More if I didn't bother helping you."

"If it's better than my work, why are you even here?"

"How about a new deal? I'll do the Eyes Only Experience for a week and then you'll do my stuff for a week taking turns for two months. See who thinks what is better."

"Deal."

"Deal."

"Good."

"Good."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"Alright. I got blaze," said Max. "Great chat, Logan, but I got training. Call me once you get on your next Eyes Only mission."

Two birds, one stone. Logan was riled up on his Manticore hunt. His update would be more like two weeks from now rather than two months.

Plus, Max made the perfect opportunity to get in on the Eyes Only shtick. See if she couldn't worm her way in further now that Logan granted her an initial pass. ID the big boss. Juicy Manticore bargaining chip.

* * *

 **Max**

"Okay, I've got an Eyes Only job lined up," said Logan. "You ever hear of Herrero? He was a famous crusading journalist that disappeared some years back. Anyway, his daughter contact Eyes Only. She reckons there is more to it than that."

Logan handed Max a stack of photos. Max flipped through them. One was taken from a birthday party, presumably Herreo and his daughter, surrounded by streamers and wrapping paper and balloons, grinning for the camera. This cheery family snap theme occurred in all the photos.

"She sent me these," Logan continued. "I looked into it back when he first disappeared. It's all coming back to me. Everybody wanted Herrero dead-cops, mob, political bosses. Basically, he gave anyone who was dirty a reason to kill him...and they did."

"She's looking for the truth," said Max. "I mean it's too bad. Her dad vanishing is a big hole in her life, but I dunno, finding out whether he was murdered isn't gonna bring him back."

Logan shrugged. "I know what you mean. I feel for her. I guess knowing is better than not knowing. It'll get rid of the question marks. You still wanna help?"

"Name your help," said Max.

Logan did. He threw down the gantlet with the challenge of some breaking and entry. Something he presumed that a jesus-freak would be ill-equipped to handle. For Max, it was like a typical Manticore job.

Max swaggered into Fogel Towers the next day before class and handed over the stolen CD cases she lifted from Municipal Building. "The CDs, as requested, Logan."

Logan raised his eyebrows, but quickly inserted one into his laptop. "Do I even want to know how you got these?"

"Girls kick ass. Says so on the t-shirt," said Max.

Logan's eyes flickered from his screen to her chest, confirming that yes, it did say precisely this on the t-shirt. He rolled his eyes. Not quite the reaction she hoped for, but still, worth the t-shirt. Logan was way too single minded to be distracted from these CDs by anything less than a fire right now.

Whatever. For Max, the job was a bit of fun. Much better than teaching snot nosed brats fractions. That was it. Nothing more or less (unlike Logan – this was his life blood). It wasn't like Max actually cared beyond keeping up appearances.

"Thanks for this, by the way," said Logan. "I didn't think you'd get on this so soon. I meant to give you something first."

Logan gestured at a wooden box on the coffee table. Max narrowed her eyes at it. Was that supposed to be? She reached for it gingerly, as if there might be a bomb inside and opened it, finding a gun. Her first real present and it was a gun? Typical.

"Not to sound ungrateful, but I don't really do guns," said Max. Adding, "falls under one of the big 10: thou shall not kill."

The Colonel gunning down Eva was still too fresh in her mind. Not the escape night. Eva had a gun pointed at him too. If she wasn't ready to shoot, she shouldn't have picked up the gun. Basic weaponry. And a bullet to the collarbone never took down a X5. It wasn't exactly a traumatizing experience, not any more so than the rest of the training had been.

It was the execution day. That one that Max had to anticipate and then actively participate by being on the firing squad. Looking back, Max didn't know how she managed to do it. Erikson had warned her to expect the duty and that her gun would be a blank, advising her to do it, or find herself in Eva's position. "Colonel Lydecker isn't much for second chances, and definitely not third ones, so don't waste it on a futile gesture."

After that, Max dreaded using guns. She didn't have much of a choice. It was a matter of put up and shut up. That sort of defiance was inconceivable. The weakness, in itself, was bad enough without exasperating it with non-compliance. Max thought she had got away with her gun anxiety, kept it well concealed, right until Erikson outright said she wasn't especially suited to assassinations. If Erikson were here, she'd take it to prove that wasn't weak and sensitive. But he wasn't and she was free to do what she wanted.

Max wasn't required to listen or prove herself to Logan.

So while she could, Max was gonna do what she wanted out here.

No guns.

It felt good, not being obedient and guarded, and this realization was absolutely terrifying to her. These must be her dangerous thought patterns – the willfulness and defiance.

"Ah, okay," said Logan. He pushed the box away out of sight. "I forget sometimes. I don't remember girls like you back when my parents used to drag me to church."

"I wasn't like this back when I was going with my parents to church," said Max. "Speaking of which, you're coming to my world in two days. Hope you're ready."

"Born ready," said Logan. "You're not finished with this job yet."

"Okay. What next?"

"Spying on the housekeeper," said Logan. "She's looking like the most probable killer. I'll look into it this further. Might get you to install a recorder in the house. That won't be an issue right? Girls kickin' ass and all."

"Whatever."

* * *

"You're late," Normal snapped.

"I overslept. Sorry. It won't happen again," said Max.

Simple lies worked the best. Normal knew that her schedule was packed. It was him that suggested most of her extracurricular actives. It wasn't exactly shocking news if she struggled to balance everything from time to time. Normal already knew far too much without telling him extra Eyes Only scandal.

"Thought you didn't sleep," said Normal. He gave Max a hard look.

Normal hadn't outwardly reacted a couple weeks ago when Max made this quip, but obviously he stored that tidbit away to throw in her face. That man was paying far too much attention to Max for comfort. It made her skin prickly. Normal knew too much and was too smart. Too much watching and he'd figure everything all out.

"I guess my body probably needed to catch up," Max muttered.

"Yes, well, catch up on your own time, girlie. Sleeping in 'til noon…Christ on a bike. That's what's wrong with America today."

"Yes sir," Max said through gritted teeth.

A sarcastic retort would be much more satisfying (and not unexpected). Politeness, however, would distract Normal. Being called sir almost gave Normal a hard-on. It would be the only thing he would remember from this conversation, pushing away his suspicions for another day.

Normal complained a bit more before leaving Jam Pony in Max's hands. Max duly ignored Sketchy banging his head on his locker, not even bothering to quip about minding company property. She just settled in behind the dispatch desk with a textbook and the headset and did her best to tune out the gambling debt conversation. She was perfectly successful ignoring Sketchy's problems until the next day when Original Cindy talked Max into being her gambling buddy.

"Why me?"

"'Cause you count cards," said Original Cindy very matter-of-fact even though she had no business knowing anything about this. "Small world, boo, one of my lickety chicks hooked up with one of your dance peeps, told Original Cindy all how dance is just math or something and counting cards pays for class."

This was news to Max. She had gambling and dancing put into mutually exclusive categories. Counting steps had little to do with counting cards. That was not to say that Max couldn't count cards. The math was simple and she had a good memory. She just didn't know how dancing helped. Admittedly, she hadn't done good ol' fashioned gambling since taking up dancing so maybe there was a connection.

She could do with having a Jam Pony favor in her back pocket to call in and she didn't have any plans this evening anyway. So that's how she ended up in her best version of stripper clothes (a skin-tight sparkly top and hot pants from her dance wardrobe) alongside Original Cindy at Rafe's place that night.

"It's more physics than math," Max explained to Original Cindy, watching the roulette wheel spin. 3.2 revolutions per second. The ball was rolling at a velocity of 4.4 meters per second. A few quick calculations allowed her to determine the landing. Calling the bouncing was all intuition though. Enough to earn them three grand in an hour.

"At this rate, Sketchy is still toast," Max predicted. He only had two hours.

Original Cindy shook her head. "Nope. By my calculations, we've put in the time here to get us into the back with the poker game. And that's gonna get us the twelve big ones. Play along with me."

Max wasn't able to follow this math, but she was willing to follow Original Cindy's lead. Max was smart. Not just the academic X5 book smart, but real word smart, where she had to take chances and risks based on little to no intel and zero time for consideration. Max often didn't even know her own next steps even as she was doing them, so it wasn't exactly disconcerting to assume Original Cindy had a hunch and go with the flow.

Once Original Cindy got them into the poker game in the back, Max easily hustled the guys out of ten grand. Like candy from a baby. She just did the dumb ditz thing for a couple of hands, lost some cash, put down an apparently foolhardy bet and then cleaned up. Oldest trick in the book and they didn't even know what hit them. Suckers.

It was basically the most fun Max had in Seattle. Wine and pasta at Logan's or talking shop with Normal just didn't quite cut it.

"Hell of intuition there, girl," said Original Cindy, admiringly. "That wasn't just counting cards tricks, that shit was near magic. What are you doing at Jam Pony?"

"Just living an honest muggle life," quipped Max. "No seriously. That was a one-off favor. I don't wanna hear Sketchy's big plan about how we should rip off casinos together. Not happening."

"I hear ya, girl, but that fool is gonna hassle you no matter what I say. C.R.E.A.M."

Max frowned at her, trying to figure out the meaning. C.R.E.A.M? That was a new acronym for her. And here she thought her CVU was near flawless. If she didn't know it, she could usually bluff it. But Jam Pony was a whole culture unto itself.

"Cash rules everything around me. C.R.E.A.M," Original Cindy clarified. "It's just the world we live in."

True enough. The n, the insight hit her like a sledge hammer. Alina would get her father killed tonight. It was all a scam. Alina was recruited by someone, probably Allan Lans, to play Logan and he fell hook-line-and-sinker for his hero's daughter sad little story about seeking the truth.

Max should have seen through it much sooner. Except she hadn't been that bothered, hadn't put any mental energy into the case, just did the legwork and phoned it in and nodded along without really listening to Logan's bitching about Herrero going underground to keep himself safe and dropped his responsibilities and convictions.

Too bad he wasn't smart enough to stay gone. That's the mistake people made. Nosiness or nostalgia or just plain stupidity, they couldn't let the past stay where it belonged. Given the opportunity, Herrero was willing to reconnect with his daughter and it was gonna get him killed if Alina operated by C.R.E.A.M rules and Max had no reason to assume Alina wasn't.

"I got blaze," Max said to Original Cindy, and took off without further explanation.

Once out of earshot, she rang Logan. He answered on her second ring. "Max?"

"Hey. Look, I think Herrero's gonna get whacked for real tonight and that Alina might be in on it. Get him to the safe house or whatever it is that you need to do, alright?"

"That's hell of a theory," said Logan.

"You can thank me tomorrow," said Max. "And, Logan? Don't forget that tomorrow we're finished your week and start mine. Better get a good night's sleep."

* * *

Logan dropped by after work, as planned, to join her for after school homework club in a disadvantaged school in sector 2.

On route, the radio presenter reported the explosion at an apartment building on Alexander Drive. Logan turned it up. "All residents have been located and are said to shaken but unharmed except for 32-year-old Rebecca Cuthrell whose body has not been identified The cause and her whereabouts are still under investigation, but informed sources are calling it suspicious."

"I _nearly_ got them killed," said Logan, turning off the radio. His voice was tight and angry. "I _would_ have gotten them killed except you tipped me off. How did you figure it out?"

Max shrugged. "It was just a hunch. Something Original Cindy said to me. I had a Sherlock moment."

There was a beat of silence.

"You're really more Mycroft than Sherlock," Logan observed.

"Meaning?"

"Don't buy the deerstalker hat," Logan quipped. He shrugged. "Let's save the psychoanalysis for after homework club. This is it, right?"

Max glanced out the window at the school. "Yup."

"So what's our story?" Logan asked. He killed the engine, but made no move to get out of the car, just drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

"What do you mean?"

"What are you going to tell them about who I am?"

"A bored rich kid with grandeur notions about saving the world?"

Max tilted her head and studied Logan's profile. She hadn't thought about this. What was Logan? She could hardly introduce him as a business partner or colleague (if that's what they even were). He didn't exactly fit in with her college friends. One thing was for sure, everyone would have lots of fun thoughts and opinions on the subject of Logan.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

"Boyfriend," said Max decisively.

Logan smirked and raised his eyebrows. "Boyfriend?"

"Yep."

"Does that sound believable? That a good little Christian schoolgirl is dating a man ten years her senior? No funny business. Just honest to god good clean fun? No one will buy that. Try again."

There was a hard nasty edge in Logan's voice. This, it seemed, was a touchy topic. Why? Was this a matter of reputation or something else? This conversation seemed to extend in front of them like an endless minefield.

"I don't know what you're getting at here," Max admitted. "Are you worried about your reputation? That people will think you're taking advantage of me?"

"Amn't I?" Logan countered. "Dragging you into this Eyes Only stuff? Herrero's place gets torched an hour after I put him in contact with his daughter. What the hell is gonna happen if you and Ben get in touch? It's too risky. I think we should call the deal off. All of it. Especially your help with Ben. I shouldn't have gotten you involved. I'm sorry. You probably should forget about everything."

Shit. This is the opposite of what Max wanted. Damn Logan and his stupid conscience interfering with her plans.

"You didn't make me do anything. I knew exactly what I signed up for," said Max firmly. "I'm not a fragile innocent damsel being tricked and conned by a big bad man to suit his own agenda. That little role play is all in your twisted imagination. Deal _not_ off."

"Max-"

Max cut Logan off with a kiss. It was quick and chaste and just enough to distract him.

Max pulled away. "Too late. Show has started. Get your game face on."

* * *

 _Next up is '411 on DL' as narrated by Zack himself so stay tuned for that. Let me know your thoughts on this chapter and if there's anything that you'd like to see for future episodes! e.g. any scene preferences - Manticore, Jam Pony, Fogel Towers, lab, dance, church - that you'd like to see more of? So far, I've jumped from one to the next but willing to focus on ones that seem the most interesting to readers.  
_


	6. 411 on the DL (Part I)

_Here is '411 on the DL Part I' for y'all!_

 **Zack**

Zack wanted a job at a local messenger service in Seattle. It was one of those handy gigs – freedom to come and go and a sector pass and minimal supervision to make this possible. Figuring that the main guy, Normal, wouldn't hire him right off the street, but that he would be easier to con his way in with the other manager, Max, that held down the for in Normal's absence, Zack made sure to stop in when he knew she would be there.

"Who would I talk to about working here?" he asked one of the employees, who was just inside the door, goofing off.

"Well if you're smart, no one. But if you're desperate and male prostitution is out of the question, talk to Normal Junior over there," replied the guy, jerking his thumb at the female manager, Max, behind the desk who was on the phone but apparently paying attention this exchange.

Max chucked a package across the room straight at the guy. The guy didn't even see it coming, not until it was smacking off his chest onto the ground. "Hot run, sector one, Butterfingers."

"Ow," he complained, clutching his chest and shooting her a filthy look. "Uncalled for! You _are_ Normal Junior. It's not like I called you Queen Bitch or something."

"Keep talking and I'll be shoving another package up your ass," she said. She lifted up a rolling pin shaped package threateningly. Her other hand was held over the speaker of the phone.

"Going, going, going," he muttered, grabbing the package and moving away rapidly.

Zack threw a look at the guy and then one at Max as if he was having seconds thoughts but gamely approached the desk anyway.

"Excuse me. I was wondering if you had any job openings?"

Here, if this was Normal, there would be a rant about housing enough deadbeat, no-good bums and sending the asker away. Zack watched this very exchange last week. Instead, the girl eyed him appraisingly, and produced a crumpled application form.

"No promises, but fill this out and get back after lunch and I'll check with Normal."

Zack filled out the form on the spot in the seating air, already playing up the eager overachiever to get in with the boss.

Easy-peasey. Zack didn't even have to pull out his charming moves to get in with her. That would be little awkward based on his wishful thinking that she might be his to-date unaccounted for sister by the same name. Logically, he knew it wasn't his Max. Sure, it wouldn't be out of character for his sister to be so reckless as to use her own name and put down permanent roots. The girl _was_ the right age and appearance.

However, he found out from the Jam Pony rumor mill, was apparently Normal's niece. He didn't see the resemblance, but there was something casual and familial about their interactions that he bought it. No barcode. No recognition of him. Anyway, no transgenic believed in God (little hard to reconcile faith when you're a man made abomination) or wanted to learn anymore about genetics (they were trying to escape that).

Although finding his sister was a bust, Zack had a little time on his hands and this was a sweet gig so he he decided to hang out in Seattle awhile longer. Zack didn't really think much more about Max until one evening when he traipsed into the Jam Pony, an hour overdue from a run, scowling and pale, to find Max rather than Normal waiting for him.

His own behavior, in itself, wasn't so suspicious. It was textbook Jam Pony messenger protocol, except these stunts were confined to working hours. Nobody lazed about after hours unpaid. He hadn't really expected someone to wait for him, but demanding receipts and rigid account keeping was apparently in the family because there was Max.

And she was dancing to something. She wore ballet shoes, her hair was swept up into a bun, and she had in earphones playing loud piano music. She didn't seem to notice him arrive. Zack studied her for a long moment, taking in her form and fluidity, again reminded of his sister who had never even seen dance (of his sister who had a black and white barcode tattoo on her neck).

"You detour to the moon or something?" she asked, once she spotted him, still up on her toes and turning, unconcerned and undistracted by his audience.

"Held up at a checkpoint," Zack muttered. He dropped a signed receipt on the counter with a shaking hand.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what they all say," said Max.

"Whatever. Can I go?"

Max glanced over at signature with the docket name as if she could see it from there and nodded. "Yep. You're good."

Zack dumped his bike in the back and disappeared into the male changing room just in time for the seizure aftermath to hit him. He sank to the floor, wrapped his hands around his knees, and urged it to pass quickly before Max finished off filing the final receipt and signing off on whatever bits and pieces. He could hear her potter around, not dancing anymore, just working.

Max knocked on the door. "You gone through a locker into Narnia or you still there?"

Zack didn't reply, just tired to reign in his ragged breathing, knowing she was about to barge in any minute now.

"You decent? I'm coming in," Max announced. She looked wide-eyed, but held her hands up, palms facing Zack and approached slowly like was a corner animal. "Hey Sammy, you alright?"

"Yeah. I just fell and hit my head."

Max didn't call him out on this blatant lie. It was what she wanted to hear. Box checked. See no evil, paperwork no evil. It was as simple as that.

"Do you need medical attention?"

"No!"

"Take a chill pill, man," said Max.

"Chill pill? Who says that anymore?" scoffed Zack.

"Sue me. I grew up in a little house on the Prairie," Max replied.

"Is Normal really your Uncle?"

"This is a fun game. Nope. Is your emergency contact brother a real person?"

Zack kept his expression neutral but couldn't help a sharp intake of breath. This, he hadn't expected. Jam Pony wasn't the sort of place that checked the stuff. Major alarm bells were ringing. Shit. What was place? It had _seemed_ a little weird but he ignored his instincts.

"You check that stuff? You think you're the CIA or something?"

"You referee was made up. Figured it wasn't the only lie. And I was right," said Max evenly. She ticked off the next few points on her fingers. "Your address doesn't exist. Your phone number belongs to a clueless accountant. Your old school thinks Sammy is a black kid in a wheelchair."

"Why didn't you tell Normal?"

Max shrugged. "I checked up on your packages. They all got delivered. I was waiting for strike two. You're hired based of my recommendation and I didn't want unnecessary grief."

"Am I supposed to owe you or be grateful?"

"It wouldn't be inappropriate," said Max. She crossed her arms and regarded Zack with a neutral expression.

Zack slowly clambered to his knees and then his feet, leaning heavily on the wall and nearly collapsing onto the bench. He rested his head between his knees and clasped his hands behind his head.

"Normal is a friend of a friend of a friend," Max explained. "I needed a hand with something for college and he need managerial back up. It is what it is."

"What does Normal know about college?"

"He was a professor in a different lifetime."

"No. Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Next thing you'll be telling be you're a genetically engineering super hero in your past life," Zack quipped, despite himself, knowing it was a terrible mistake, but holding out the hope that maybe this Max was his sister. It would account for her caution, the paranoid check-up on his background.

She didn't react visibly. "I'm not exactly a cape and mask girl. You don't seem like the time to believe in a past life."

"Compared to what? You don't even know me."

"Unless you were my BFF in this so-called past life of mine," Max muttered.

"We were in the same class at superhero school," said Zack, figuring he might as well keep going, figure her out and then get the hell out of town.

"Yeah? What was that like?"

"Kinda crap. It wasn't really a superhero school. It was more of a superhero concentration camp run by a super villain."

"Sounds grim."

"Couple of us broke out though."

"And did we go around saving the world?"

"Nah. Too busy trying to save ourselves."

"How's that been going?"

"Alright. Safe for the most part. Keeping their heads down."

Max tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. "Nice story, but kinda explains why you're a bike messenger and not an author. No one wants to read about heroes just killing time. That's just a crappier version of real life."

"What if it was real?"

"I don't believe in past lives or reincarnation," said Max blandly.

It couldn't be his Max. She wouldn't just play dumb and leave it at that. Not the Max he remembered who had millions of questions and comments even under Lydecker's thumb. No way the freed Max would be so incurious or indifferent.

"Get your stuff together, Sammy. I'll walk you home."

"I can walk myself home," said Sam, bristling.

"Great. Then you can walk me while you're at it."

"To my home?"

"Or mine. Whatever works for you," said Max. "Quick warning: it's a church sponsored housing and tonight a venue for the ever fun and exciting bible study lock in."

Sam gave her a look, not sure if this was factual account or sarcasm, and decided that he didn't care. "Option three: I walk myself home. You can save the good Samaritan shtick for someone else."

"Go home. Don't go home. Do whatever you want. But you can't stay here," said Max. "Bip. Bip. Bip."

* * *

 **Zack**

Zack, despite his better instincts, showed up at work the next day but decided to back off from Max. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. He wasn't sure what she was, but way or the other, she was someone to watch. Max was someone that he might have to terminate if it wasn't tactically safe for him to simply vanish. He hadn't made his mind up on this yet. This meant staying put for now.

Zack was on his lunch break, idly flipping through a magazine, when her older, wheelchair bound boyfriend, Logan Cale, dropped into Jam Pony armed with sandwiches, coffee and an agenda.

"Hey yourself," said Max to Logan. She nodded at the supplies. "What gives?"

Logan rolled his eyes. "That's the appropriate response to a surprise visit from your boyfriend that you hardly ever see."

"Still you don't take the hint," Max quipped. "No seriously. No such thing as free food. What do you want?"

"You hand in marriage," he said. "Or an hour of your time this evening, whichever one that sandwich buys me."

"Now this sandwich tastes like prostitution," Max commented, around a large mouthful. Truth be told, it tasted awesome. This was a homemade Cale specialty and not some crappy overpriced take-out.

"Eating falls under consumption agreement, which is kind of legally binding," said Logan.

"Eating requires several steps and is terminated by swallowing which I have not yet done, don't get ahead of yourself," said Max. She continued to chew.

"Get a room," said Original Cindy. "You two disgust me."

Logan raised his eyebrows ad Max shrugged. "I can give you a package. That any good?"

"No."

"Huh. It benefits me though, so take it anyway. South Market," said Max.

"In other news, you swallowed," said Logan, turning back to Max.

Sketchy happened to be wandering by right in time for this comment and started choking on his own saliva. He was bent over double and spluttering.

"I can't breathe," he gasped.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, cycle it off," she said. She chucked a parcel at him. "It's right beside the hospital too, because I'm that nice."

Sketchy carried on his way, still hunched over, but steadily moving. Max turned back to Logan. "What do you have in mind? Saving the world? Pasta?"

"They're not mutually exclusive," said Logan. He paused. "Black helicopter operation stuff."

Black helicopter stuff?

My favorite kind," said Max, deadpan. "I'll stop by at eight after class."

"I'll have the pasta ready," said Logan.

As Logan left, Max looked around. Her eyes landed on Zack. He kept flipping through a newspaper on the other side of the room, seemingly too far away and entirely uninterested in the exchange. Max didn't look like she was buying it meaning that the must know he was a transgenic.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Zack got a run from Max that wasn't far from Fogel Towers, swung by his own place to pick up a bug, then snuck into Logan's apartment to hide it. It was a tight operation. Logan got home with Zack just around the corner.

That evening, Zack was listening to the feed from the utility room in a nearby building that was just within range.

"Not the next Justin Bieber I'm guessing?" he heard Max say after a lot of chit chat and dinner talk.

"Michael Hanover. Booked for armed robbery nine years ago. Escape after four hours and hasn't been seen or heard since," Logan explained. "It came up when I ran a search on distinguishing marks in the Federal Corrections database. You recognize the face?"

"Not Ben," said Max. "He looks like the new guy at Jam Pony. Sam."

"That's some coincidence," said Logan

"Your coincidence is my conspiracy," said Max.

"Who exactly is behind this conspiracy? Manticore?"

"Probably not. I'd say Sam is one of the kids that ran way. I think the better question is actually who is the target? It could be you, Logan."

"Me?"

"You walked away from a supposedly fatal accident and have been causing trouble ever since taking down bad guys and searching for these kids. It's a bit suspicious."

"That's hardly new," Logan protested. "This Sam guy is at your workplace not mine. Ben was your friend. You're the one pulling of flashy gravity flying dance tricks with a smile. You're a better fit as a transgenic."

Ben. Of course it was fucking Ben. Ben who let Zack believe he was dead by sticking his barcode on corpse for Zack to hear about. Zack fell for that stunt twice before he realized that something wasn't right there. Once, maybe it was a stupid trick to get Lydecker off his back and sneak out of town. Twice? That was trouble.

"I've been quietly minding my own business," said Max. "And a workplace you visited today don't forget. I could just be a link to you."

"I'm not a transgenic. I'm not the right age. I wear glasses. I have a medical history and parents."

"Yeah. Me too. It's called being under cover," said Max.

Zack frowned, wondering along the same lines that they were. If neither of them were transgenics, what was going on? Why the interest in his family? None of this added up. He didn't have enough information, didn't know the Max and Ben backstory and if she was related to Ben going off the rails.

"Why wouldn't he just call in for a chat? Why this unnecessarily complex trap? It doesn't sound right," Logan disagreed.

"Nothing like a bit of healthy paranoia to avoid capture," said Max. "I mean you could be Manticore agent. Knowingly or unknowingly if they tapped your computer or stuck a microchip into you during your hospital visit."

"For the record, I'm not. And Manticore wouldn't get pass my network security," said Logan. The words were rapid, urgent, and desperate for her to believe them.

"I know," said Max. "Sam might know Manticore, but I know you. It's just a case of mistaken identity. We'll all laugh about this down the road."

"I can't believe you guys worked together for weeks and this is only coming out now," said Logan.

"It's like a terrible soap opera," Max agreed. "He didn't have a barcode. I guess he lasered it off."

"It grows back," said Logan. "It's etched into the genetic code. Awful lot of hassle."

"The mark of Cain," Max commented. "Sounds like the kind of guy who does whatever it takes as often as it takes."

"The type of guy that will murder me once he finds out I'm not one of his people," said Logan darkly. "I can hardly wait."

"I'll crash here tonight," Max volunteered. "Murder in front of your boss is a social faux-pass that will slow Sam down. Give you a chance to plead your case."

It was completely reckless, but that was the sort of mood Zack was in, so he went along with plan and appeared at half three in the morning. Logan was fast asleep and snoring. He couldn't hear Max. If she was an ordinary, she wouldn't hear him.

He went straight for Logan's office and rifled through his files, hoping that this might shed some light onto Max's role in all this.

Suddenly, the chair spun around. "I'm guessing you're not the pizza delivery guy," she quipped.

"Max?" he asked, suddenly taking in her appearance as a person as though he hadn't already known she was at the apartment. He had already picked up his bug, leaving no trace of his spying activities. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I think that's my line," Max commented. "I'm having a little sleepover. You? I'd guess you're moonlighting as a thief? Am I wrong?"

"Something like that," Zack muttered.

"Serves me right from hiring someone with dodgy references," she commented.

"No hard feelings? Alright? Go back to bed, I'll let myself out," Zack tested, waiting to see where Max would take this conversation.

"Don't, stay," said Max.

Zack blinked. "First time I've heard that one."

"Don't jump out the window like Rocky the Flying Squirrel. I'm just turning around. This will all make sense then," said Max. She didn't wait for a reply before slowly turning around and pulling her hair aside. She had washed the concealer off, exposing barcode in all its black and white stripy glory.

Zack inhaled sharply. "Max?"

* * *

 _And queue...cliffhanger._

 _I think Zack is probably a little out of character here but I'm gonna argue that he might be extra uptight around Max because she's so chill/reckless and now that I've tweaked that dynamic in this AU he gets to be a little reckless. This, and he also a little blinded by his desire to get Max out of Manticore so he's taking all these unnecessary chances that he shouldn't._

 _Plot-wise, if one of them wasn't a little reckless, then this story wouldn't go anywhere. Max would just keep her head down and refuse to engage with Zack (because she's not gonna just defect and she's not gonna try bring him back so the only option is ignore him and focus on Ben_ ).


	7. 411 on the DL (Part II)

_Little bit slow on this one. Originally, the Logan scene didn't exist but I felt I had to clarify some things from his perspective that make sense to me as the author but not necessarily readers so here's the first jump into his head. I had to go back and write that but the next chapter will be up much quicker. Thanks for reviews and follows - it's so interesting to know people are liking (meaning that I'll keep doing the right stuff_ ).

* * *

 **Zack**

"You got out?" Zack asked, stupidly, still hardly able to believe that this was his Max and had been all along, his brain was still catching up so he asked the seemingly unnecessary question.

Max hesitated before answering, long enough that it was an answer in itself. Zack's stomach dropped. He backed away from her, glancing around, wondering where the TAC team was, mind whirling through escape and evade scenarios.

She hadn't got out.

"Chill. It isn't about you. Self-centered, much?" she said, striving for snarky, but mostly sounding a little anxious. "Give me five minutes. That's all. Alright?"

Zack nodded and cut straight to chase: "What's the job?"

"Ben. He's lost his mind, leaving a trail of tattooed toothless bodies down the east coast making him top priority for the Colonel and not just a fun Sunday project that you guys usually are."

Max narrowed her eyes at him, realizing that this wasn't completely news to him. "But you know this. Jesus, Zack, you're cool with that? Sure, I get some identity fraud and minor theft, you do what you gotta do, but that is just insane and unnecessary."

"It's…complicated," said Zack. "Back to you. Crazy idea: just leave. Come with me."

Max shook her head, closed her eyes and then used her hands to scrub her face. She looked worried now like this wasn't a conversation she wanted to have.

"You don't really trust me, do you?" Max sounded incredulous. "How can you make me that offer without waiting for me to try and con you? Don't be dumb. And, more importantly, I don't want to leave."

 _Didn't want to leave?_

Completely brainwashed. This was weird because, at least superficially, Max acted okay and normal. At Jam Pony, she was snarky, nonchalant and bored. Even if she didn't quite blend it with the rest of them, she didn't really stand out either. Under the surface, apparently, there was this massive indoctrination iceberg and this whole mission to retrieve Ben.

Zack couldn't have imagined this scenario. He quickly cataloged and ordered his flying thoughts, sorting through how to handle this version of Max. How long had she been on this mission? At least two, if not three months, not so long as to undue years of conditioning.

Arguing would only cause her to fight back more. Max was stubborn, had always been stubborn, and she would rigidly believe the Manticore party line only more in the face of his arguments, drive her right back into their arms. There was a possibility he could convince her to defect, get her away from them nearly ten years too late, but he couldn't force it.

"Right. We're agreeing to disagree, yeah?" Zack suggested neutrally. "You're happy with them, I'm happy out there."

Max nodded slowly, wearily, as though waiting for him to attack Manticore, and relaxed marginally when he didn't offer any further criticism.

"I'm worried about Ben too," Zack said. "What are your orders? Maybe we can work together. I help you. In exchange, you don't breathe a word to your handlers about me."

"Retrieve. Psy-Ops will handle him, sort out the crazy, make him okay," said Max. She sounded like she believed this, like they wouldn't tear him to pieces to see what was going on with his mind.

"Are you allowed terminate?"

Max flinched at this suggestion. "Yeah, I'm a pretty shoddy lean mean killing machine, so technically yes, but realistically not so much. Guess Ben got my share of killing genes."

"It's the lesser of two evils. You agree to terminate, I'll help you. I absolutely won't do anything that will put him back in there. It's not something he would ever have wanted even before he started acting out."

"No tricks?" said Max suspiciously. "'Cause I'm not pulling any tricks, not on you, so play fair here."

"If I was trying to trick you, do you really think by asking that I'd just admit it? That's the worst trickery in the book," said Zack. "But no tricks. Just a pair of siblings helping each other out. Like old times."

 _Us in it together._ It wasn't the subtlest reframing attempt but it would do. It, along with a thousand more, would all contribute towards breaking down the brainwashing. And the longer it took to get Ben, the more time Zack had to save Max.

Zack didn't need to think about it. Any one his siblings, Max included, was worth dozens of ordinaries that might suffer at Ben's hands. He would make that trade in a heartbeat. The exposure was troubling in that it affected all of the others. However, since Manticore were on the case, he was willing to bet they were swooping in and shutting down the police and media investigations and this wasn't so bad.

"Okay. Let's do this," Max agreed.

"Right. Get me up to speed on Logan."

Max quickly summed up their arrangement. Zack was silent, processing this info dump, keeping his expression neutral. Finally, he asked: "Are you actually using him to find the others?"

Checking again that she wasn't out for extra credit.

Max shook her head. "No."

"Really?"

Max rolled her eyes and met Zack's hard stare. "No. If I was lying, would I tell the truth if you asked me twice?"

Touché.

They quickly figured out the details of their arrangement and scripted a little scene for Logan's benefit so that Zack could skip town and see if he couldn't pick up Ben's trail independently of her efforts. Zack would being do this as promised (but it would be actively sabotage her and not help).

"I'll find you. No contact details, no offence," he said.

She shrugged. "Fine. But you're giving at least 24 hours notice at Jam Pony or Normal will be bitching to me, so hold your horses, buddy," said Max.

Zack didn't trust her, not really, not with any unnecessary information. The less she knew, the less she might feel inclined blab to her handlers. But he did, ridiculously, stupidly, trust that she wasn't especially a threat for the others. Despite her self-proclaimed loyalty to Manticore, she didn't seem especially zealous or proactive about getting him back. She had passed up an easy opportunity.

It didn't add up. Was she playing a long game like he was doing with her? Maybe. Zack couldn't tell. The Max he remembered could have half a dozen strategies at play and then not bother with any of them on an impulsive whim. Her chaos usually worked though.

Even if she was a genuine escapee, Max would always have been his most difficult sibling to look after. Her being Manticore just made it ten times harder again. Zack could do it though.

He didn't have a choice after all.

* * *

 **Logan**

Logan was consistently surprised that Max was so good at reading and handling people. He was a clever guy so it was a little weird that his brain refused to accepted this information. Especially since the whole premise of him interviewing her rather than one of the grad students at the university was entirely based on this skill set.

Well, that, and also that Max was clean-cut, cute and a cliché pulling-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps story. Logan had gotten very little dirt on her before the interview and not much more during it. She was a model interviewee and it fit his needs nicely so he wasn't complaining.

Truthfully, he hadn't initially noticed that Max was guarded and aloof, not during the interview anyway. It wasn't until their second meeting that he clued in to this fact. Her metaphorical defenses weren't anything as obvious as an electric fence or a moat. She lived behind a thick invisible ice wall, seemingly vulnerable but impenetrable. Max had seemed like the sort of girl that Logan could know for ten years and still not know nothing about.

The ideal interviewee from the genetics department. Logan would grant them that alright. Whoever picked Max for the job was presumably talented at managing people. Thing was, Logan was pretty good himself at reading and handling people. Attributes of a good journalist.

The whole interview was a little game. Even if Logan hadn't realized the full extent of his opponent at the time, he always knew it was a game and had been playing quite well.

It ended essentially in a stalemate. The whole transgenic thing was just a distraction ploy. Damage control to keep Logan from snooping into the university. It just happened that he didn't give a damn about the university and _did_ want to suss out Manticore.

Win-win situation.

Logan kept forgetting that Max was winning too. Not that this fact bothered him, but it was too easy to assume that he was taking advantage of her and dragging her along on this ride and ruining her life. That Max was young, sheltered, innocent and fragile and dumb.

None of these things were true. Okay, Max was young enough, but she was mature beyond her years, and maybe a little sheltered but a quick learner and tough as boots. Logan was willing to concede that she was ten times smarter than him. And she had quickly proved she wasn't innocent or sheltered from the effortless way she pulled-off his Eyes Only requests. And she was adamant that he wasn't tricking her.

Logan forgot all these facts on a regular basis. He only saw the college student who danced and attended church and shared ridiculous stories from Jam Pony. She picked up groceries and he cooked dinner. They independently hung out together in his apartment doing their own things near each other. They kept up their dumb bet over who could outlast who with their joint-activities.

These things were all true but only a snapshot of the real Max. It didn't give credit to her successes and abilities, that she had earned a full-ride scholarship, that secured herself a competitive near non-existent part-time paid research assistant position, that she juggled an impossible workload, that she was a superstar Jam Pony manager, who was able to hack Eyes Only jobs.

It shouldn't have been surprising that she intercepted Sam skulking around their apartment and talked him into a business arrangement. And still, Logan was surprised.

Most of the haggling had obviously happened while Logan was still sound asleep. It was presented to him as a well packaged arrangement. Focus his research efforts only on finding Ben who was a AWOL troublemaker that was disobeying Sam's rules and off his radar. Neglect the rest. Share any intel about Manticore with Sam. Whip up some security passes and IDs, if asked. All very simple things for Logan to do.

In return? He got a transgenic player in his Eyes Only network, albeit an absentee one, but one willing and able to pull of some risky jobs and one with a vested interested in stirring up governmental shit to keep the spotlight of his family.

Sam reappeared in his apartment not long after Max left for work and while Logan was still honoring his word to burn all files relating to the escapees. Sam appeared soundlessly and eating a slice left over pizza from the fridge, apparently watching him from the doorway for sometime before Logan had noticed him.

"Hey," said Logan, startled but acting cool. "You forget your sunglasses or something?"

"Or something," said Sam. "I wanted to talk to you about Max. Behind her back."

Logan raised his eyebrows. Interesting. "Go on."

"So what is it between you and Max?"

Logan shrugged. "I don't know. Something. I just don't know what."

Logan wasn't gonna try spin Sam the girlfriend story. He seemed like the type of person who would see right through it, who apparently already had seen through it because he bothered to ask his question. Logan and Max weren't that. It was only a convenient pretense. But Logan didn't know what they were.

Even when there was no one to pretend to, it felt like they were still pretending something, and that maybe the pretending was a little real. Max had kissed him. Sure, it was to prove a point but it was a hell of kiss. Logan could think of much worse things than it being real, but it wasn't something he was actively pursing or wishing. Whatever their something was, Logan was content with it, and all too happy to leave it exist undefined and nebulous.

"You like her," Sam observed.

"Yeah, well, Max is pretty damn likable. Doesn't she have Normal all wrapped around her finger? And you lot listening to her? There's something about her that makes people like her. Me too," Logan admitted.

"Do you trust her?"

"You don't?" Logan countered.

"I don't trust anyone. But I especially don't trust scientists. Not prodigies, like Max, who is probably this close to being snapped up by Manticore, who probably will accept because it's a tactical move and she doesn't have a whole load of good options to turn it down. If she had to, I think she'd sell me out. You? I don't especially trust you, but you're enough of a stubborn wild card with options not to feel that pressure. So I'd trust you over her in a heartbeat."

Logan digested this monologue. He couldn't contradict Sam. Max had exploited every opportunity that came her way and ensnared those that didn't, and created a hell of lot of advantages for her herself within months of hitting town. She had agreed to deflect Logan from the university and turned a one-off interview into a long-term set up. This, realistically, was what got Max her research job. What would she do to get a PhD? Tenure? Yeah, she could sell out Sam, and she wouldn't see it that way.

"So what?"

"Be careful," Sam warned. He handed Logan a flyer with two phones number and instructions scribbled on it. "Memorize and destroy. It's the number to a voice mailbox so the others can check in with me. And now you too. Don't tell Max. It's better if she believes we're using the social media thing. Information she doesn't have is information she can't use and that way we can all be friends."

"Is she your friend? You seemed pally enough."

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," said Zack. It sounded like a threat.

Logan could only assume this applied to him too. And, he didn't believe, not for a second, that these numbers were the same ones used by the others. Zack would have gotten Logan a different set and pretending like it was the same was the set-up for some sort of trap or test. He played along.

"So she hasn't done anything yet?" Logan checked. "I mean I looked her up back in September and she seemed totally harmless. I got to know her and realized that's bull, but nothing I've found suggests she involved with Manticore or mixed up in those circles."

"She isn't. I looked into it too. That's partially why I was in town. I thought maybe she was one of the others or one of _them_ on a mission. Doesn't look like it. Just a girl. Potentially a threat, not yet, but maybe eventually."

"Live and let live?" Logan surmised, slightly sarcastically. "You hardly seem like the poster child for that motto."

Sam sneered. "I'm the poster child for pre-emptive cautionary measures that negate the need for reactionary ones down the line. That's what this is. You play ball and then no one needs to take out threats. _Live and let li_ ve. Any more questions?"

"Dozens," said Logan, cocking in his head, appraising Sam. "But none you'll answer. None I need answered. I've got your number and you have mine. I'm suitably cautioned about my fake-girlfriend. I'd say we're all good here."

"Good enough," said Sam, getting in the last word, and vanishing.

In the stillness of Logan's apartment, it was like Sam hadn't been there at all. If it hadn't been for the flyer, Logan might have thought he imagined it. There the flyer was: crumpled in his fist. Like he promised, he memorized and destroyed it.

And reminded himself again that Max was good at reading and handling people, so good that she might just being let Logan believe they were handling each other when it was really only her handling him, allowing him to believe it was mutual.

(And maybe Sam was too but his agenda was much clearer (look after his people) so Logan knew where he stood and what to expect from Sam.)

Pretense in pretense in pretense.

Or not.

Who was Max really and what was her game plan?


	8. Prodigy

_We move onto 'Prodigy' (quick recap: the episode were Max attends a genetics conference hoping to get a fix for her seizures). Obviously events play out a little differently here - for instance, there's no need for a Rachel Glasser disguise - but read on to see what happens. This one is a two any further ado, part 1:_

* * *

 **Max**

"Max, hey, you know the way gene resequencing is awesome?" Rob asked. His head first appeared around the door of the small cell culture room in the lab building, followed by his body in a lanky awkward way. He took a sip of his coffee and waited for her response.

"No coffee in here, Rob," Max reminded him.

She would kill for coffee right now. Damn him. Max had been here since some stupid hour in the morning to get this experiment set up. A badly timed seizure caused a tiny spill and subsequently hours of extra work. This was just about okay, but not with someone rubbing their coffee in her face.

"It's not coffee, it's uh, PBS," said Rob. He paused, nodded and continued drinking.

"You're drinking PBS?"

"I'm using myself as a guinea pig, I'm thinking this stuff is the perfect hang over cure," said Rob carried on, digging his hole deeper.

Max rolled her eyes. Whatever. "And you wondering were exactly the mad scientist stereotype comes from."

"That nicely segues into my initial question, getting back to that, what's your answer?"

"Sure, it's what gets me out of bed in morning," Max muttered and refocused on the task at hand. Her hands were still feeling a bit shaky and she couldn't afford another spill.

"Cool, cool, well then Tanaka is in town with his crack broccoli brained baby turned boy genius tomorrow. Wanna come? Cohen suggests that I should take an undergrad minion along…."

"Cammie is rostered tomorrow. Not me," Max answered, stalling for time as she ran through the probability that Manticore was behind this invite and, if so, should she or should she not attend the conference and ultimately decided that she didn't care either way.

Rob looked blank.

"Blonde. Tall. Snake tattoo," Max described.

A current pre-med student and ex-pre-pro ballet dancer (now turned jazz) that lived with her two sisters in the apartment block across from Fogel Towers.

A friend? Not quite…nearly a friend. Definitely a friendly acquaintance. It didn't matter to Rob.

"Oh. Yeah. She's a moron. She spells polymerase with two L's and Z. You did the press thing and the mickey-mouse project, so you make more sense."

"And you know my name?"

"Mostly that, yeah. You should consider yourself lucky. Walsh's new post doc has been here like six months and I don't know her name."

"When you put it like that. How can I say no? I'll swap with Cammie."

Maybe she'd get some tips from the guy how to fix up these shakes. Tryptophan was not taking the edge off, not like the Manticore issued drugs that were now washed out. She couldn't get the hook up while playing escapee. She could, however, do reckless nonsense under the guise of authenticating the identity.

"Great. Drop by after lunch," said Rob. "Oh and it's business casual dress code if that means something to you."

* * *

 **Max**

It was a pretty awesome talk in a geeky genetic sense. Max had come armed with a notebook and pen to take notes playing the over-eager undergrad, but ended up taking notes in spite herself.

She also took the opportunity to appreciate that Manticore didn't parade them around the globe like Tanaka with the kid. Not publicly or regularly anyway with crowds of random scientists and press people gaping and pointing like he was a zoo animal.

Max had been the demo X5 taken out for inspection by the Powers-That-Be in the aftermath of the '09 escape. It was a one-time affair. She had traded in her fatigues and boots for a pink poufy dress and white buckled shoes. She put on a blonde curly wig, the final touch of the costume, and attended a granddaughter's princess-themed birthday party that had a tea party, tiara and wand decorating tables and a castle. Max had made a cursory attempt at decorating a sparkly wand but wasn't really sure what they looked like or what was the point and ended up joining the birthday girl's brother and his friends playing 'Cowboys and Indians' rather than participating in the real party.

The Colonel, her handler for the job, who had also been attending the party talking business with the adults, had called it a success and praised her ability to fit in and go completely unnoticed by the Powers-That-Be. They had been shocked and delighted by this trick the next day seeing Max again, this time in uniform, performing some tricks and drills.

"It's so well-trained and tame," one of them had commented. "If this one can do that well, considering that its role in the unfortunate rebellion and the halted training, the rest will surely below its out of the water."

"They will," the Colonel promised.

"They doesn't negate the need for immediate outputs," argued another.

"Of course," Colonel Lydecker agreed. "We will pull several X5s from their full-time training programme onto a separate stream to prepare them for immediate supervised short-term jobs. They will be sub-optimal but sufficient."

This, it seemed, was the perfect working description for Max: sub-optimal but sufficient. They sent her out on dozens of jobs, all supervised, and all successful, and all short. It was like that for years. If Max wasn't in psy-ops, she was in remedial isolated training and if she wasn't there then she on job duty (be it prepping, deployed or reporting).

The Powers-that-Be were apparently happy with reports and didn't require any further demonstrations. Or, if they did, this information had not been divulged to Max and it happened while she was ostensibly playing security for a congressman or babysitting a celebrity's kids or something. Max was okay with this. It wasn't something she ever thought about before until seeing Jude parading on stage at this conference.

Time to get her head back onto the conference. _This_ could be a demo. Either way, Max needed to treat it like a demo, like Manticore was watching and assessing how well she was managing her first long-term undercover solo operation, because ultimately they would make a judgment on her performance and she needed it to be positive.

Max scanned the crowd, trying to ID any Manticore faces so that she could casually avoid getting into their proximity, but instead found Logan hanging out with Rob. Huh, that was a super-fun and unexpected pairing that she couldn't keep together in good conscience.

Biotech Frontiers, Logan's nametag read. He was making a name for himself in the genetics scene. For his mortality, this was bad. It was too late to switch to a fake name. He'd get himself killed trying to get out the wheelchair.

Max didn't know he would be here. Not that it was any of her business, but it seemed a bit weird that he would keep it close to his chest. It wasn't a huge leap of imagination that she would also be here. How were they playing this?

Logan was mid-mingling. He caught sight of Max, eyes widening, but pulled his gaze back towards the guy he was talking up. The guy's back was to Max – tight graying hair, glasses, short stature. No one of interest.

"Is that your area of specialty, genetics?"

This was Rob's chat-up line. The wrong answer meant he wrapped up and got away pronto. He only talked to his own kind, the scientists. He didn't even like talking to them, but networking was in the job description. He had already separated from Max by more or less throwing her at a journalist and making a quick escapee.

"I've done some work in the field," came the reply.

Max stumbled mid-step, heart skipping a beat. Shit. That was Lydecker. Colonel _fucking_ Lydecker. And she overlooked him. There was no mistake his gravelly voice, even if she hadn't recognized him in civilian clothing.

Being in Seattle was making Max sloppy – casually dismissing her worst nightmare, and barging in on one of his private conversations. Max was committed to this plan now. Both Logan and Rob would call her out on this if she ran the opposite direction for no apparent reason. Worse, Lydecker might notice too. This might be seen as rude, if not worse, than interrupting and certainly more noteworthy.

Time to just do it.


	9. Prodigy II

**Max**

"I've done some work in the field," Lydecker replied. Colonel Lydecker didn't visibly react to Max slipping into their circle, just throwing a disinterested glance in her direction.

"Anything that I'd be familiar with?"

"Not quite. I work with children, teenagers really…gifted teenagers."

"That sounds gratifying," Logan commented, suddenly interested as Rob's eyes glazed over.

"I guide them as best I can. But, mostly, I provide a framework in which they can flourish."

"Must be a challenge," Rob said distractedly, glancing around looking for an excuse to make his great escape.

"Oh, it is. You know, it's always the highly intelligent ones who most lack discipline," replied Colonel Lydecker.

"Maybe they figure they're smart enough to think for themselves," said Rob. There was defensive note in his tone now.

This comment struck a nerve. Rob was smart. He was like a walking encyclopedia. Discipline, however, was like an alien concept. Cohen had called him out on it more than once apparently and Rob was touchy.

And hungry, because he quite happily helped himself to Max's plate.

"Being a food-baring undergrad minion is just classic overachieving, you shouldn't have, but because you have I will take your plate," said Rob, while munching into a sandwich. "You did forget the coffee though, so I'm just gonna go grab that. You should try harder next time. In the meantime, Mr. Lydekcer was just telling us about gifted teenagers. Max is a gifted teen. Discuss."

Just like, he was gone. _Dickhead._

Logan looked bewildered and shocked. He gestured at Rob's rapidly retreating back towards the balcony rather than the refreshment table. "You gonna let him get away with that?"

Max shrugged. "I don't think I could stop him. I'm not hungry anyway. I just needed an excuse to escape the last _journalist_ he dumped me with. It's a bit of a theme."

"Haha," said Logan, giving her a hard look.

"Biotech Frontiers," read the Colonel, now that Max had drawn his attention to it. "I can't say I've heard of that."

"It's new. I'm contractor there, but free-lance too with other science companies, and non-science work," said Logan. He gestured towards Max. "This is Max Williams, one of my recent interviewees."

The Colonel handed her a business card, introduced himself as Don Lydecker and offered his hand. His grip was tight and unyielding, a powerful handshake, which wasn't terribly surprising, but not something Max knew from first hand experience. Up until today, he didn't have a first name. He maintained eye contact with her until she dropped her gaze and looked away.

"And you're gifted?" said Colonel Lydecker mildly, bringing them back to Rob's topic.

Max squirmed. "Um, I think that's a little bit over-exaggerated, sir."

"You're being too modest," Logan disagreed, shaking his head, ready to talk her up.

"On a scale of crack cocaine baby being one and the smartest person ever alive on earth being 10, what are you and I and what is Jude?" Max challenged Logan as distraction so that he wouldn't cite off her accomplishments that surely wouldn't impress Lydecker.

Logan laughed at this but thought about it seriously. "I think I'm a 5. I'd put Jude at 8.75 and you…you're a bit of an enigma. 6? 7?"

"So I'm closer to you than Jude. Not so special," Max surmised. "I'd argue with the validity of your scale. Is it linear? Exponential? Arbitrary? That's a different conversation though."

"What _do_ you do, Max?" asked the Colonel.

"I'm a student, sir," said Max. "I do research part-time in Prof. Cohen's lab. I'm here today with Rob, who is one of his grad-students. The talk is a bit different from our work but it sounded too cool not to come along."

"For pleasure rather than business?" Logan teased. "You're such a nerd with your love of recombination technology and accurate scale measurements. Definitely gifted."

"I would think so," Lydecker agreed. "Actually, can I borrow you for a few minutes? I'd like to introduce you to a colleague that would be very interested to talk to you."

"Yes, sir," she agreed, without really wanting to say yes but she didn't know how to argue with the Colonel.

Max followed him out, automatically keeping one step behind and to left out of habit. Colonel Lydecker paused, gave her an irritated look and placed a hand on her back propelling her forward to walk at his side. Max tensed at his touch but let the shove move her forward and forced herself not to jerk away from the touch.

Max never realized how much she hated being touched because she hadn't ever got a say it. It was just standard that medics and handlers would manhandle X5 units. She let herself be dragged, grabbed, shoved, prodded, whatever, against her subconscious will but without arguing or resisting.

"What are you doing with Logan Cale?" Lydecker asked her, once they were in the elevator and he finally dropped his hand.

"He's investigating Manticore. He knew about the escape in '09, asked me about it when I met him first. I played dumb but I'm directing his research efforts towards 493," Max explained.

"Good," Lydecker acknowledged. "Do you know if he's anything to do with the 22nd movement? We're expecting them to try and grab the boy. My money was on him as a threat."

"I don't think so, sir," said Max.

"Fine. Carry on with him as you are. I'll leak some of our intel to him about 493, see if that doesn't inspire him."

"Yes, sir."

"Your _relationship_?" he asked

"Pretend couple to justify us spending time together, sir," Max clarified.

The boundaries of their fake relationship were a little blurry though from their original rigid quid pro quo business partner parameters into companionship. Max stayed over at Logan's place at least two nights a week. At first, it was handier than her own place for the evenings that she had dance rehearsal until late and then church early. But those evenings, they hung out together like they were a couple, eating dinner, sharing stories about their day, playing board games or just simply being together while working on their own stuff. Not quite incriminating behavior but definitely intimate, unnecessarily intimate, since they had no reason to pretend in private.

"Pretend," the Colonel echoed, sounding unconvinced. "Be careful. I'd wager that he's pretending he's pretending."

Max nodded although she wasn't sure that she understood this new meta level to the relationship that Lydecker was insinuating.

"Remind me of our policy on relationships."

"No fraternization within ranks. No contact with civilians beyond the scope of mission parameters including but not limited to romantic and/or sexual relationships, sir."

"Don't forget it," he said.

 **Max**

"Ah, my _favorite_ transgenic delinquent in the flesh," Erikson quipped, upon seeing Max, in his hotel where Lydecker had taken her.

Eirkson exchanged a long look with Lydecker. The exchange wasn't remotely subtle, probably wasn't meant to be, but Max didn't know what it meant.

"Sit down," said Lydecker, gesturing at the sitting area on the other side of the room. Max obeyed.

"One second," said Erikson, holding up a finger.

The two of them went out into the corridor. Max strained to hear their quiet conversation but couldn't make out the words from here. She crept over to the door to listen, figuring they were maybe ten feet down to corridor, just far enough that she could get back to the armchairs and pretend like she wasn't eavesdropping.

It was about the kid. Manticore were taking him. Erikson would be Jude's handler too.

"Okay good. Keep me in the loop about 452," said Lydecker.

"Sure. Any initial thoughts?" asked Erikson.

"Adequate," said Lydecker after a terrifying pause. Adding, "She seems nervous but otherwise stable."

"Hmm. That's probably just you," said Erikson. "No offence. They're a little scared of you."

Max was obediently sitting in the armchair when Erikson came back. He gave her a hard look. "I don't buy the innocent act _for a second_."

"Sir?"

"You were listening," he specified. "That was a _private_ conversation."

"There was a little bit about me," Max mumbled in her defense, keeping her eyes glued to her hands on the table in front of her. There were shaking slightly. No seizures though. Different shaking. Anxiety. Strangely, she felt less anxious out here on placement in Seattle than she did back at Manticore.

"It doesn't matter."

"Sorry, sir."

"It was an obvious test that you bombed, you get that, right? Pretty disappointing. Not so much the defiance but the stupidity. Arguing with me about it too. To top it all off, only being sorry you were caught and not for your actions themselves. It was 60 fucking seconds. You might as well have just assaulted one of us or went snooping through my suitcase. Or was there not enough time for that?"

It had never even occurred to Max to snoop around the room. This was the point she supposed. It wasn't just doing the wrong things it was even being _aware_ of them and _considering_ them as possibilities. All the worse to then go and do them.

That's the way they made her. It sucked she had to deal with shoddy manufacturing. What was the alternative? Termination? She didn't want it to come to that, didn't want Erikson to write her off. She was lucky that he would find time to see her here when he was on other business. It was a pretty shitty way to repay him.

"I'm really sorry," Max repeated. "It won't happen again."

"It _won't_ ," he threatened. He turned away from her now and was rifling through his suitcases.

This sounded ominous. Max watched him, worriedly, feeling the adrenaline coursing through her system, she felt ready to flee. She wouldn't though. That was beyond stupid. He left here there squirming for twenty minutes, in and out of the bathroom and the room, riffling around, making noise and apparently busy.

Then, Erikson obviously decided that she stewed for long enough, because he came back and stood over her with his arms crossed. "What should we do with you now?"

"That is is not for me to speculate, sir," Max replied.

This was a question she used to mess up all the time. Guessing any disciplinary measures was never the right answer. This response was predicting the future, jumping too many steps, thinking too much. Basically it was the sort of things things that usually led to the need for discipline in the first place.

Erikson allowed her a hell of a lot of leeway in most of their exchanges but when it came to discipline he was as unrelenting as the Colonel himself.

"Damn right it's not. What was your order?"

"Sit down."

"What _did_ you do?"

Max _did_ sit down. She just didn't _stay_. Really the command should have been more specific. Was she supposed to sit there indefinitely? Sit if the building was on fire? That was semantics and not the real problem so she dutifully bit back these responses and dutifully replied that she eavesdropped.

Erikson must have seen them on her face though. "You're on thin ice. Don't start a fire."

 _I didn't say anything._

"I know. I'm sorry."

" _Why_ are you sorry?"

 _For getting caught._

"For being disobedient, dishonest, disrespectful and defiant, sir," she listed without hesitating.

"You forgot dumb," he said. He paused. "Huh. D adjectives are all quite negative, aren't they? Avoid D's, I guess, is the lesson here." He sighed and made a vague gesture. "Go on then, list the good D's. I already see you mentally doing it."

"Disciplined, dutiful, deferent," she recited immediately, all these on the tip of her tongue from training. There were dozens more but it seemed too impudent, way too risky, to list the likes of 'delightful' and 'dauntless' that might normally amuse him.

"Don't avoid those ones," he said. "You got that the right way around, yeah? The good D's and the bad D's? If you were nothing but disciplined, deferent and dutiful you would be a great solider. Those are your foundations."

"Yes sir," she agreed.

"Okay, let's leave it there. To conclude this lesson, though, let's watch some truly dreadful behavior. That's right. It's _Dance Moms_!"

Erikson picked up the remote, flipped through some stations, and then landed on the one showing ' _Dance Moms'_. He hopped onto the bed and made himself comfortable arranging the cushions. "It's also the perfect show for a hostage situation (because that's what being a cast member is like) so chill you're not going anywhere."

Max stayed where she was, still watching Erikson rather than the TV screen that had now captured his attention. Erikson had confessed his vice of watching terrible reality TV to her before. This was punishment for her and fun for him? Convenient that. She hadn't seen much reality TV to have an opinion on it but she could think of much worse punishments. Erikson was immediately sucked right in to the drama and dragged her right in there with him. By the second episode, they were debating their favorites and and disagreeing with the pyramid places.

"Oh no, the head piece fell off," Max exclaimed, genuinely distraught for that kid and dreading Abby's reaction, after seeing the flashback from the last prop falling off. "She's _fucked_."

"She can't win now," Erikson agreed." Second place is first loser so she's gotta save those tears for her pillow."

"So, which one is the best and worst?" she asked, while the mothers bitched at each other watching the kids dancing.

"The mothers are all crazy. No blame game. Badly done all of you," said Erikson.

Once this episode ended, it was time for _Storage Wars_. Apparently was just too classy for Erikson's liking because he swapped stations over to the news where they were showing coverage of the hostage situation going on downstairs.

"That's Rob," Max said, pointing him out, from the delegates that were huddled on the ground. She wanted to stay in this safe neutral territory, not back towards discipline, and this was the only thing that came to mind. "I'm here with him today."

"Rob as in Rob Evans, genetics grad-student extraordinaire?" asked Erikson, leaning in squinting at the screening to make out the face. "You guys are pals? Us too. He knows like twelve people and _you're_ one of them. Hah. Go figure."

This meant that Max had to take a picture of Erikson chilling on the bed watching the news with a caption reading 'better life choices haha' so that he could text it to Rob and rub it in his face.

Rob texted back immediately asking about the room number and was at the door in minutes. She answered it. He looked a little surprised to see Max but not especially concerned. "Of course, you'd do a hostage situation in style, eating snack food, watching your _fucking_ terrible shows too I bet, and me down there like a schmuck," he complained.

He grabbed two cans from the mini bar and crawled across the bed to sprawl beside Erikson, cracking one open and giving the other to Erikson. "You're a _bad_ person, Dean."

"Chip?" was all Erikson had to say to this rant.

Rob took the entire bag off him and then the remote too. He changed the station to ' _Game of Thrones'_ and happily settled down, practically snuggling in right next to Erikson.

"Should I go?" Max asked, feeling distinctly like a third wheel in this unexpected coupling.

Rob shared the details of his love life fairly exhaustively so she had heard the name 'Dean' bandied about a lot but hadn't quite made the leap to the Dean Erikson that she knew. Rob's exact description of his not-boyfriend was 'the Asian version of Sherlock and Atticus Finch rolled into one' and that wasn't quite accurate.

"It's not completely safe down there just yet," said Rob, shaking his head. "What are you doing here anyway? Are you one of his guinea pigs? I don't want to fuck with your work, Dean, but I'm duty bound to tell my fellow lab mate this: there is a polar bar in the jungle, the puzzles are always traps and everyone lies."

Max blinked. "Um, thanks? That's, uh, sure to be useful…I think."

Erikson looked amused. "You know I have fingers in many pies, Rob, so sage and broad advice, certainly, but not applicable here because I was only picking her brain about how to get meaningful quantitative data from kids like her using something like the Likert scale. It works fine for the majority but some questions will be pretty compromised in a subgroup of difficult people. Quite fortunate you were here and chatting with Mr. Lydecker."

"Mr. Lydecker of the gifted kids?" asked Rob. He scowled. "Now I _am_ worried that you are up to something, Dean. Me and Logan had a bet that the kid was going home with him that I'm sure to win and that was all in good sport 'cause that kid was always screwed but Max is my friend. Max, I compel you, say no, _fuck_ you Lydecker and your offer."

That was such a hostile statement that Max flinched from hearing it let alone daring to think or say it.

"You're so cranky and paranoid after a hostage situation," said Dean mildly. He managed to look so disinterested while Max felt like her eyeballs would pop out of their sockets. "Nothing to do with Lydecker. I'm consulting with him on a crime case. No questions. I shouldn't have even told you that. But he knows about some of the other research I'm doing and sent her my way."

"Oh, okay, then. Dean is cool," said Rob. "Let the record be noted _, young lady_ , that I don't like Lydecker."

"You spoke to him for maybe 10 seconds," Max reminded Rob.

"And I've got excellent instincts, hear you me."

"You _ditched_ me there."

"Your boyfriend was there too. You were fine," Rob dismissed.

"I ended up in some random guy's hotel room under the premise of answering questions."

"Jesus, Max, that _is_ dumb. You're a stupid smart person. I mean I knew that 'cause I got you to do the Logan thing with the threat of Cohen but learn to say no the authority figures and supposed authority figures already. Practise this: no Lydecker, go fuck yourself."

"Please do say that, Miss Williams," Lydecker challenged, having just appeared in the doorway in time to hear this.

"Don't say it," snapped Erikson immediately, giving Max a warning look. He was not in the least bit amused about Rob counselling her to be defiant and disrespectful after Erikson himself had read her the riot act and especially not right in front of Lydecker.

Rob looked torn between amusement and horror at being caught out so shamelessly.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself, Mr. Evans?" said Lydecker.

Rob stopped smirking and eating chips under the weight of Lydecker's stare and shifted uncomfortably. He seemed to weigh up his options. Erikson elbowed him in the side. Rob went with a not terribly apologetic apology:

"I was trying to prove a dumb point. I didn't mean anything by saying you specifically. I'm sorry if I offended you."

"Get up," said Lydecker.

Rob hesitated.

"Now!"

Max felt like she stopped breathing. She looked to Erikson for how to react. He gave her a small shake of the head. He wasn't going to interfere on behalf of his not-boyfriend so neither should she.

Rob obeyed slowly, still defiant but looking worried now, and sullenly stared Lydecker in the eye.

"How old are you?"

"25."

"25, _what_?"

"25 years old," said Rob, a little hesitantly, throwing a look for the first time at Erikson.

"Sir," Erikson supplied.

"25 years old, uh, sir," Rob repeated.

"Old enough to know better. That was an outrageous display of immaturity, disrespect and profanity. Apologize to Miss Williams for this unseemly carry on and being a terrible example."

"I'm sorry for being a bad mentor, Max," said Rob, duly, still with only the barest trace of apology in his voice.

In the lab, Max would have made a quip and the others would have all piled on. That was the dynamic. Here, she couldn't utter a peep, just nodded and tried to swallow around the horrible lump in her throat.

"I'll make you an offer. I presume you were expressing concern over Miss Williams visiting my program? Yes? You visit us. One week. Starting now. You can, in good faith, recommend or not recommend the program from your experience. And you get the added bonus of much needed helping of discipline and structure to sort out your attitude."

"Yes, sir," said Rob, willing to use that magic word now that he knew it but he still sounded a little bored.

"And you," said Lydecker, turning to Max, who flinched back into the chair to escape his wrath. His tone softened. "You are, of course, a welcome visitor but it sounds like you're a little overscheduled so perhaps later in the year. Do watch your language."

"T-t-thank you, sir," she managed.

"As you were," said Lydecker to her and Erikson.

He grabbed Rob by the arm tightly and yanked him out of the room and out of sight.

"Fuck," said Erikson in the ensuring silence. "Thought Rob might keep mouthing off 'til Lydecker shot him. Good to know he has some deeply buried survival instincts."

He looked at Max. "You do too, so erase those 5 words from your brain. Don't worry about Rob. I'll make sure he's okay."

 _Again, no major deviations from the episode. Same end point, but completely different journey from a different start point to get there. And it's the journey and destinations that's the fun part. And, really, the final destination is the the season finale and all the interactions here that don't change the episode ending might have significant influence on the series finale._

 _I've realized that in the subsequent chapters I never address what happens to Rob. It doesn't come up. So not to leave you hanging, here's what happens: Lydecker's scared straight program involves dragging Rob to Manticore and just sticking him in solitary to stew and worry for a few days followed by a threatening meeting with himself. Rob doesn't see or learn anything about Manticore and is released without a hair on his head being touched but is suitably chastened and intimidated by Lydecker and acts a little quiet and subdued for awhile before returning to his usual self (and despite thinking bad words about Lydecker, not uttering any of them). At some stage, off-camera, Max and him discuss this and then forget about it._


	10. Cold Comfort I

**Cold Comfort I**

 **Logan**

"There's Max, thought she'd wasn't supposed to be here," said Sam, abruptly interrupting Logan mid-sentence. He was listening with his head cocked to footsteps that Logan hadn't heard yet.

"She isn't," said Logan.

Logan wasn't expecting Max for another hour. He frowned and threw a look at the clock. Max was never late, never early, just always there right on time, even for casual things like dinner. She didn't casually drop by around 7 or 8 for dinner. She specified when she'd be there and followed through precisely. For such a good quality, it was actually really annoying. And, for once, when he was banking on it, apparently somewhat unreliable.

Then, Logan heard the door open, after something fumbling with the key.

"Hey, we're in the back," Logan called out to her, as a warning that they weren't alone. "I have a stray for dinner."

"Sounds like she does too," Sam remarked.

Again with the air of judgment that Logan had given him bad intel. For a rogue solider, he was pretty fucking uptight. They weren't planning the invasion of Russia here and being interrupted by Jehovah's witnesses. It was an expected visitor that was a little early plus a guest. Considering that Sam had literally dropped in unannounced, injured and barely conscious only two hours ago it seemed a bit rich for him to be complaining about unexpected people.

" _We?_ You and _who_? I didn't know you had other friends," Max called back, disinterestedly, presumably dumping her coat and bag before coming to check it out.

Logan looked as Sam appraisingly. Well, he wouldn't exactly call the man a friend. A partner, maybe. Even that seemed too intimate.

"Your friend," Logan replied.

Despite genuinely offering his help and support to Sam before he skipped town, Logan hadn't actually anticipated that Sam would take him up on the offer and definitely not so soon. Then again, it wasn't like Sam had a whole bunch of choices with the state he'd been in.

He didn't look too bad now. Transgenic healing ability already kicking in? Or Sam was right back to his default pseudo- invincible and untouchable resting state? Probably a little of both.

" _You_ have other friends?" came the other voice from the other person. It was Rob. Now _that_ was the definition of an unwanted stray.

Only Rob appeared. He nodded at Logan, barely glanced at Sam, and was texting on his phone. "Hey, guys."

"Where's Max?" asked Sam. He was glaring at Rob.

"Getting changed," said Rob. "She, um, is slightly covered in blood from a lab accident, but it's all fine now so don't worry."

"Covered in blood?" echoed Sam.

"The Hunger Games?" asked Logan at the same time.

The Hunger Games was an ongoing series of stupid challenges that went on in the lab that ranged from stupid word games, right up to dares, and stunts. The day he had visited for the interview was haiku day and his tour guide never hesitated to keep playing.

It was hard to take accidents seriously or sympathetically when they were caused by supposedly very intelligent adults pretending the floor was made of lava. Or whatever they might have been playing today.

"No," said Rob. "It was work, for a change. She cut herself on a machine. It has a really sharp knife, like sharp enough to cut bone, and she was _careless and not paying attention_. And, you know, hands bleed at lot so it all looks very dramatic."

Rob said the middle bit loud enough so that Max could hear before dropping back to regular volume. He then showed Logan a picture on his phone of the injury. It was a deep nasty cut, three inches long running from her index finger across her palm sewed up with over a dozen spidery black stitches. It looked like it nearly took her finger off.

Logan winced and hissed. Fuck. That looked painful.

Max appeared now. She looked fine aside from the soft cast on her right hand. She was now dressed (or more accurately _not_ dressed) in some of her dance stuff that found its way here– a crop top, leggings, no shoes or socks and an unzipped hoodie. Nothing that Logan hadn't seen her wear countless time already but Sam, who to date had only seen modest professional Max, had to stop himself from gaping.

Logan didn't gape. Not to say that he didn't appreciate it, but he just kind of took it for granted. You could get used to anything eventually, including a gorgeous, semi-clothed girl casually contorting herself into stretches that were somewhere between provocative and painful because while doing this she was also talking Eyes Only business and crunching through college assignments. That was just a standard Tuesday evening.

Logan suspected that Max was probably a terrible real girlfriend. She seemed too guarded and distant for the vulnerability, connection and honesty of a strong real relationship. She was, however, the perfect fake girlfriend. Max was a low-maintenance cool girl personified. No playing stupid games or making demands or prying into his stuff.

Logan hadn't realized he needed a fake girlfriend but now he couldn't picture his life not having one. Date night was the perfect cover his Eyes Only work that kept him busy. She backed-up his lies, brunched with the friends, charmed his Uncle, and was an all-round awesome part-time roommate. And Logan wasn't anywhere near ready to try out the dating scene yet so she kept him safe from confronting that.

"Rob is a filthy liar," said Max. "Don't listen to him. I _swear_ to you he just came at me with that knife. He saw that I finished off that buffer and just flipped. He's a _bad_ person."

"She's joking," said Logan, quickly, worried that Sam might just take Rob's head off. He was tensed and ready to pounce. Was he actually growling? Max gave Sam a look too. What was going on with them? Seemed a little intense for ex-colleagues.

Max eyed the picture of her hand critically. "Though you are good with a needle and thread, I give you that. Gotta say, didn't really believe you at first. It just sounded better than hospital."

"Are you okay?" Logan asked her.

"Super," she said. "Rob is just being overprotective, accompanying me back here."

Rob gave Logan a look. The look said she's your responsibility now, don't let her get away with that bullshit. "And, as it turns out, I'm meeting Dean for dinner not far from here so it all works out quite nicely. You folks have fun now."

Logan had to admit that Rob _was_ a good friend. A _better_ friend than Logan was to Max. Fake boyfriend did not translate into decent friend. It had been Rob that worried about where Max was at the conference while Logan had barely spared her a thought. Rob had always been leery about Max and Logan's fake relationship, seemingly sensing its innate falseness, and assuming that Logan was exploiting Max. And Logan kinda was, but she was using him right back, so they were equals in the arrangement. It would be Rob, not Logan, that was able to look after Max, but Rob had his own boyfriend to get to so looked like Logan was on boyfriend duty.

Logan walked Rob to the door, like the good host he was, but mostly it was so that he could get Rob out before Rob changed his mind. Good friend or not, Logan wasn't exactly a fan of the guy and didn't want him hanging around. Three was crowd, four was a disaster. And Sam and Rob were practically the worst two people he could think of for a group hangout.

"She's still in shock I think," said Rob, quietly, pausing in the doorway. "Knife so sharp you wouldn't feel it, but she barely even reacted to getting the stitches. No tears, no swearing, no flinching. I mean this is Max, yeah, who isn't exactly sobbing damsel in distress type by any stretch of the imagination but it's weird that she didn't complain at all. The very definition of suffering in silence. So don't assume she's alright because she won't admit to not being not alright."

Max was tough. It was a dancer thing. She wasn't the first dancer that Logan had dated so he knew all about how they popped pain pills and accepted a ridiculous level of pain as normal and got on with it and kept dancing. It wasn't exactly shocking to hear that Max fit the stereotype.

"Sure, thanks, Rob," said Logan.

If Max's injury was being managed adequately like Rob claimed and Max said she was fine, well, that was good enough for Logan to leave it alone. She was as independent as he was. She didn't need or and wouldn't expect or appreciate coddling.

"So what's going on here?" Max was asking Sam when Logan re-joined them in the office.

"Trouble with a mutual acquaintance of ours and another mutual acquaintance right here in your back yard. Know anything about that?"

"I don't know what _any_ of that means. De-coded it for me."

"One of the others was careless and got caught," Sam said, bluntly. "Were you involved?"

Max shook her head. "No. Is that it?"

"You're telling me you're been minding your own business here? Not a word to Lydecker?"

Max threw a glance at Logan.

Logan quickly caught Max up to the speed: "Turns out our Mr. Lydecker from the conference is actually Colonel Lydecker of Manticore, hunter of the escapees and all-round bad guy."

Max shrugged. "Huh. Small world."

"Don't dodge the question. What did you tell him?"

Suspicious Sam assuming the worst of Max.

Sam had been sure to share these suspicions with Logan and had even persuaded Logan a little bit, enough so that Logan kept their first little encounter secret from Max, enough that didn't bother telling her about the genetics conference.

This backfired, of course, and Logan ran into her there. He had assumed that he could keep it on the DL thinking that Max wouldn't be attending it. She hadn't mentioned it to him. It wasn't her research area. And she was on Jam Pony duty. It seemed like a safe bet that she wouldn't be there. And he saw no need to be responsible for getting her involved in potential Manticore research.

What had Sam said after all? _Cautionary pre-emptive measures._

"Nothing, Mr. Lydecker doesn't report his business to me. I met him once at a conference. That's it. Logan hung out and schemed with him for the whole hostage thing so you'd want to be asking him not me."

Logan nodded. This was true and exactly what Logan had already told Sam before Max arrived.

Zack had been distinctly unimpressed to hear that Logan and Lydecker buddied up during a hostage situation not too long ago. And even less impressed to be reminded that: "the enemy of your enemy is your friend."

Once the whole situation was resolved, Logan hadn't really thought much more about Lydecker. There was another case that urgently needed his attention. This, Logan realized now, was careless. He should have put together transgenic kids with gifted teenagers when the guy telling him about the latter was a military dude at a genetics conference. The same guy who was too interested in Max (who fit the bill as a runaway transgenic) and insisted that she meet a colleague of his and then completely dismissed her presumably once he confirmed she was just a normal girl.

"What _did_ you make of him?" Sam asked Max.

"He didn't seem like your boogeyman," Max said neutrally enough, as though she hadn't been a little rattled by Lydecker's questioning. Superficially, it was all very polite and professional but there was an underlying intensity and deliberation to it that was unnerving, like failing an exam, and that hadn't even been directed at Logan.

"Meaning?" Sam pressed, refusing to let her away with this non-answer.

"Meaning, he's no Santa Claus, for sure, but he seemed okay to me. We shook hands, drank coffee, small talked. Same as I did with another half dozen delegates there. A non-story."

"You only saw his nice side," said Logan. "He was fairly tough on Jude during the hostage situation. And that's probably his kid-glove-in-polite-company toughness and not whatever he was really like at Manticore to those guys."

"Whatever." Max shrugged. "Why do you care so much?"

Logan threw a look at Sam.

' _Cause that Sam convinced me you're gonna end up working for the devil and it's never too early to derail that career objective._

Logan didn't say this. He shrugged too and said: "Doubting Thomas over here has to absolve his suspicion that one of us hooked up with Lydecker to capture Brin."

"There was something weird about Lydecker being in town, about the capture, about everything," Sam admitted.

"So what, Sherlock?"

"Give me a few minutes," said Logan, although the question wasn't directed at him. "But I'd reckon she wasn't caught by Lydecker. That there's some other party at play. I'm looking into records of military convoys leaving the city, any unusual air traffic, see if I can't find anything."

Logan returned his attention to the laptop only half-listening to Sam and Max's continued conversation.

"You launching a rescue op? Let them or him or whoever score a two for one sale on runaways?" Max sounded skeptical.

"Maybe."

Sam, for all his talk about being reasonable and safe, for his solider upbringing, was still a 21-year-old kid with that invincible, caviler attitude of his age group. This, teamed with his self-appointed responsibilities, added up to potentially impulsive poor decisions to save his sibling.

And Max, now that she had escaped her strict Christian-turned-weird-cult upbringing, was enjoying defiance and dumb decisions just for the sake of it. She'd willfully ignore Rob's advice to take it easy and jump on this Eyes Only op just because she could and shouldn't. Max didn't sound especially inclined, not yet, but Logan could foresee it happening.

Unless Logan intervened, which he should, because he was a responsible grown-up. And also because he was being tactical and a half-assed rescue op could cost him two useful Eyes Only contacts. These two things balanced each other out so he was still in neutral karma.

"Or, hear me out," said Logan, not looking up from his laptop as he spoke. "How about the two of you hang out here, watch some dumb movie, eat some popcorn, mind each other's respective injuries and sleep on it?"

Logan made sure to make his comment in a casual disinterested sort of way because this was how to handle Max. Trying to tell her what to do was doomed to failure. Even reverse psychology trickery to tell her wasn't effective. He didn't know about Sam, but figured he was someone used to calling the shots and not listening to them.

Both of them spent a lot of time looking out for or after other people. Max with charity and Sam with his siblings. It was just the way they operated as people. So it wasn't exactly a leap to get them to look out for each other. They were friends of a sort even if Sam thought they might be enemies too. Sam and Max eyed each other and then, as one, seemed to agree.

While Logan got started on research in his office, they settled down in front of the flat screen to watch an old Pixar movie with a bowl of popcorn, hot chocolate and a blanket. For such a basic domestic scene, it was ridiculously surreal.

Logan could see them as siblings. Or, weirdly, as a couple, but really those two things were quite different relationships so maybe he was a little sleep deprived himself. Or maybe he was projecting. Although Max was his fake girlfriend and not a real one, it was far too easy to feel territorial.

"Right," said Logan, handing Sam a file with map, base layout and history and other details. "She's not captured by Lydecker but an old army buddy of his gone rogue. Major Jake Sanders. Works out of Fort Xavier, an abandoned base thirteen miles outside of town. Runs the place like his own private fiefdom. Secure installation. Lots of guys with guns."

"Why?" Sam looked incredulous at Logan's story, as if Logan had come out with an alien abduction conspiracy theory and not a perfectly reasonable alternative to Lydecker. There were a lot of bad guys in the world. Lydecker was only one of 'em.

"Looks like he has a deal with the Chinese military. They've been trying to procure biosynth technology on the black market for the last few months. Word is the order has been filled," said Logan, shrugging. He raised his hands in a surrender gesture. "That's all I'm saying. Here's all info you need with an emphasis on the danger. Do with it as you like."

 _I think I've written Logan a bit differently than he should be acting, but I couldn't fit the motivations and actions of that specific version of the character into this story. He comes across more ruthless and cold here, at least when it comes to achieving the great the good, and maybe not so much because he is like that as person. The same way he owns a gun, Logan is willing and able to make concessions to his moral principles in order to do some good in the city._

 _By the way, Logan still thinks Zack is called Sam. Sam is so paranoid that he wouldn't bother to clarify and give his real name, thinking the less Logan knows the better, so whenever I'm in Logan's head, Zack will always be Sam (until I slip up that is)._


	11. Cold Comfort II

**Cold Comfort II**

 **Zack**

"So now what?" Zack wondered.

"You asking me?" Max asked. Shae made a show of pointing at herself and looking around for someone else.

"Yeah. You," said Zack, shortly. "Protecting Manticore base and secrets? Doesn't that trump your mission parameters? Shouldn't you report to your handlers?"

Max glared at him but didn't refute it. The second Logan mentioned foreign governments, her skin started crawling. This threat (don't get caught!) and the appropriate response had been drilled into her at Manticore. Ignoring it, which she had only been doing for 5 minutes, was going against her every instinct, gnawing at her.

Max could already feel the onslaught of a migraine that would hit her if she kept fighting it. The aura symptoms were already there: the nausea, the zigzagging visual disturbance in the corner of her vision, the tingling. Within an hour, it would be a full-blown migraine. As in lying down in the dark, considering pulling her brain out of her eye sockets for peace, full-blown migraine.

Then it would be seizure time. One would worsen the other in a vicious potentially fatal (long-familiar) circle. Except this time Med Bay weren't on standby to save her from her aberrant neurochemistry. Worse again, she had traded in the decent Manticore supplied seizure-control meds for shitty tryptophan to make her cover more authentic.

There must be a third option. One that wasn't contacting base to report or one that wasn't playing dumb like she didn't know about the situation. Some middle ground that would satisfy Zack and Manticore. Max wracked her brain. It was basically impossible. The only scenarios were ones that would piss off both parties.

Unless…mildly piss off all parties but let them believe to other parties were ten times more aggrieved. That would work. Give misery company and you did have to listen to it bitch at you so much.

"Kidnap the Colonel. Logan said he attends the local ADAP meeting in town. Grab him, hit up a warehouse. Explain the situation. With him along and under duress, we could waltz right in the door, sans TAC team and off-the-books. Everyone tries to double-cross each other, in the chaos you get her out and disappear. He needs her out of enemy hands more than he wants her back, he'll be happy enough."

"That is the dumbest plan I ever heard," said Zack, but he looked like he was strongly considering it.

Max shrugged. She had a track-record in thinking up and pulling off plans (or, more accurately, not-plans because these things were usually done in the heat of the moment rather than planned ahead of time), that resembled a haphazard-movie-adaptation-of-a-book rather than going by-the-book itself. Make-'em-ups were her forte.

Max knew that she had been specifically requested to work with a specific hybrid FBI-CIA team amongst other jobs on a dozen occasions precisely because they operated with a high level of chaos, spontaneity under anything-could-happen parameters and needed an X-5 that could keep up with minimal drama or explicit coaching.

This would be walk in the park by comparison.

"You said 'we'. You and me?" Zack asked after a few moments of silence "Isn't it you and him? Even if you stay mute, we can't keep him blindfolded the whole time, he's gonna see you, recognize you. Issue orders."

"That falls under everyone 'double-cross everyone'," Max explained. "If you pretend to buy my rogue cover, the Colonel will play along too to maintain it. You leave us alone for 5 minutes and he will give that order. I'm not saying he won't try a long-haul double-cross but not today. I was _specifically_ told that you weren't a priority, that I should probably avoid you actually."

"You're gonna lie to him about not having lied to me?"

Max squirmed. "Not so much lie as…fail to elucidate fully his assumption."

As per her agreement with Zack. He'd help her with Ben and she'd pretend like she never met him.

This mission threw a spanner in that story. She'd have to edit it and pretend like she conned Zack into thinking she was one of the rogues and was refusing to fall into line with his orders so she wasn't a part of his circle of trust. Max kept her promises (even if it didn't quite sit right with her conditioned loyalty).

It was a consequence of her aberrant fucking mental patterns. That's one of the ways they played up. Did this count as defection? She was skirting betrayal pretty damn close, liaising with the rogues, practically conspiring against Manticore.

Max could contact base, get pulled from the mission. Lydecker would be disappointed, for sure, but he'd understand her playing it safe.

But then she'd have to tell them all about Zack. The one thing she was trying to avoid with this scheming.

(Was this the bad pattern?)

"But why?"

"Because that's the only way Brin is not getting delivered right back to Manticore or the Chinese," said Max simply. "I'm okay with the former if you are. Just the say the word. You write Brin off to carelessness and have moral for everyone else to keep them in line. I'll contact base and tell them a version events that doesn't include you like we agreed. Hell of a lot easier. Just sayin'."

Silence.

"That's my plan A. I assumed outright you'd reject it and now you have plan B," Max added.

"Fine. Let's do it."

* * *

 **Zack**

Zack wasn't sure if the most outrageous thing (or, conversely, the most normal) about this was that it was all Max's plan.

Max had always been a little impulsive and reckless so a set-up like this was perfectly in character for her. It was completely out of character for a brainwashed Manticore drone that obeyed op-sec and respected the chain of command.

It didn't escape Zack attention that Max was supposed to avoid him. She shouldn't have admitted this to him. It meant Lydecker was worried about Zack being a bad corrupting influence, that Zack was capable of being a bad enough influence to turn Max, and that was all the inspiration Zack needed.

"So, you're gonna knock him out, right?" Zack asked.

Max flinched at his voice, apparently away in her own thoughts during their long bout of silence while they waited for ADAP to finish up confessing and drinking coffee, and then narrowed her eyes at him. "You're the one with the beef. Wouldn't deprive you of the chance."

"Ah, but surely those extra ten years in there putting up with his crap mean that you need this so much more than me," argued Zack. "When else will you get a completely consequence-free opportunity to punch him?

Max shook her head. "Nah. I'm good, thanks."

"He tortured us, beat us down," Zack reminded her. He could list hundreds of examples from his time there and figured things only got tougher as they got older (and, although he didn't like to think about it, after his unit defecting certainly dropped hammer on the rest stuck there).

"We were training to be soldiers," Max claimed. She was bouncing her foot beside her and rubbing one her temple with her non-bandaged hand. "What happened to agreeing to disagreeing? Can we not do this?"

"Do what?"

"The conversion talk where I tell you Manticore isn't so bad and you misremember and exaggerate our childhood. I remind you we were training to soldiers, you insist we were kids, and I say you're remembering it through a child's eyes-"

"Or you could do both parts and save me the trouble," Zack interrupted, smirking slightly, in spite himself.

Maybe Max wasn't so screwed up after all. She was certainly _aware_ of the issues, albeit to refute them, but that was much better than blatantly and blindly seeing no wrong.

She had been shying away from this conversation not because of politeness, but fear, scared that Zack would set her straight and she'd have to change her whole world view. Fears of someone on the edge of falling, of someone he could save with just a little nudge.

Since Zack wasn't reckless, only pretending, he didn't metaphorically push her off the cliff but just backed off a little bit. Max needed to jump herself. She had to _choose_ it. And Max was gonna do what she was gonna do no matter what he or anyone else said (try as hard as Manticore did) so time to let her do it.

"I will not assault a superior officer," said Max firmly, returning to his original proposition.

"It was your idea and you're letting it happen. Not so sure you have a moral high ground there, Max," said Zack. "And, I do it, and maybe I hit too hard and he doesn't wake up again. You do it and you control it. Doesn't that sound safer?"

"Neither of them sound like good options," she admitted.

"Your plan," said Zack with quiet smugness.

Per Logan's suggestion, they had hung out and watched the dumb movie while Logan researched, dreamed up this insane plan, and then slept on it and did nothing until the following evening until ADAP time. It was quite a leisurely chaotic plan, all things considered.

"You are such as ass, you know that Zack?" Max snapped. "You said no tricks. You busted my ass thinking I was up to no good and here you are trying to screw with me. My word is only as good as your word. Another stunt and deal off."

"Fine, didn't realize you were this uptight, you had me buying the whole snarky nonchalant Max. Didn't realize that was a superficial cover and that you're a Manticore drone with a stick up your ass. I'm sorry. My mistake. Won't make it again."

It was a terrible apology, but Zack wasn't aiming for sincerity of niceness as much as he was to antagonize her. He knew he couldn't convince her to defect but he could keep her off-balance so that she'd fall herself and not be righted by Lydecker's unwavering presence once they grabbed him.

In the end, Zack socked Lydecker and dumped him in the back seat. He shoved Max into the car too, because she was standing there open-mouthed and shocked despite this the planned course of action, and then got into the driver's seat himself and sped off.

Lydecker didn't wake until he was safely tied up and blindfolded in a shady desolate warehouse near terminal city that Zack had ID-ed during his first visit to town.

"A group of men in black SUVs kidnapped a girl yesterday on Waverly Avenue. Your men. We want to know where they took her," Zack demanded, hitting Lydecker across the face.

"You must have me confused with some—"

"Tell us where she is, Lydecker, or you're gonna have a very long day."

"I'm just a businessman," Lydecker denied.

Zack punched Lydecker in the stomach. "Where is Brin?"

"Brin? You're one of them. One of mine. X5. Nobody else would know the names you kids called each other."

"Where is she?" Zack repeated, louder and angrier as if he didn't already have this intel from Logan.

"I don't have her," Lydecker insisted. "She's probably kidnapped, sold off to the highest bidders. You're each worth millions. I don't have her. I don't want to see Brin fall into enemy hands any more than you do. Shall we discuss an arrangement?"

Zack gestured for Max to step aside for a private discussion. "Exactly per your insane plan so far. Cue our fake discussion and one of us to going off to fact-check and shake something loose and one of us stays here to work on him or catch up depending on who stays."

"You go, I stay," said Max, sticking with her original plan.

Zack returned to Lydecker. "Okay. Let's pretend I believe you. Hang tight. We'll get back to you today, tomorrow, sometime. Let you know know that Brin is away from enemy hands."

With this, Zack vanished, not giving Lydecker or Max any chance to get in a last word or argument.

* * *

 **Max**

Zack was her brother but Max wasn't so sure that she liked him very much. Zack was trying to turn her, trying to ruin her life. Some brother. Erikson had warned her about this, encouraged her to stay away, but he hadn't given any real advice for what to do if she couldn't.

Maybe she should contact base. Psy-Ops even had a strange cozy appeal. There, they gave you the right answers and you just had to follow along. It was easy and safe and familiar. Her head was pounding, she could feel seizures ready to rattle her, and she was just too tired to tune out Zack and pull off this plan.

Lydecker had it right with his talk about gifted kids making shitty decisions without a framework. It was easy to pull off her make-'em-ups in that context but right now it felt like trying to hone her non-existent psychic powers: impossible and futile.

Max wasn't ready to deal with Lydecker. Not yet, not after fending off Zack's tricks for the last hour. Five more minutes of peace and quiet.

Erikson recommended, insisted really, on practicing mindfulness and mediation. He thought that Max not needing to sleep explained half of her behavioral problems. Not enough mental down time to sort through things and too much time to get into trouble. If she couldn't sleep, she was supposed to replace at least half those hours with mindfulness. And, for the most part, at least on base, Max did.

However, with everything that had been going on and no reminders, Max had slacked off on this front. There was no time like the present to squeeze in some mediation, clear her head, maybe she might feel a little better. Five minutes became ten, then twenty. And, maybe a little bit, she didn't feel so terrible.

Regardless, Lydecker grew bored of their silence so time was up.

"I know one of you is still here," said Lydecker calmly, distinctly unbothered by being abandoned and tied up in a warehouse. "Syl? Tinga?"

"452, sir."

"Max?" Lydecker said, incredulous. "That sounds like a long story, but I'm not going anywhere..."

Max briefly explained the situation. He didn't seem especially angry or concerned. She hoped he wouldn't be disappointed. That would be so much worse.

"Looks like you've lured the wrong one into town," he remarked.

"It's a process," said Max vaguely. It was probably much more impressive conning cold logical Zack than delusional crazy Ben. Not that she could take credit for this.

"Quite a situation you've found yourself in, Max. I think I understand. Zack thinks you're a runaway and you didn't want to compromise your cover by acting suspicious and refusing to cooperate, right?"

Not really. Max straight up told Zack the truth. Told him all about her mission. She didn't correct Lydecker's assumption. Just like she promised Zack.

"Yes, sir."

"Fine, keep playing along for now, but I'd rather you kept your distance from him, Max."

"Yes, sir," said Max. "I've only seen him twice. He keeps busy elsewhere. I'll avoid engaging with him after this."

"Tell me then: how _is_ Zack these days?"

"I guess he's doing alright. You'd probably know better."

Max didn't mean to mouth off. The words weren't supposed to sound flippant; it was more of an observation. She eyed Lydecker wearily. Was it too late to tack on a 'with all due respect, sir'? Probably, that was backpedalling, making a scene.

"How are _you_ managing?"

Really fucking badly, sir.

Max didn't say this, didn't have the words to explain to Lydecker that she was falling to pieces, and didn't know how to lie to him either. They didn't have conversations like this. And it sounded like he had figured it out already without her confirmation.

"Not good?" Lydecker suggested, in the ensuring silence. He sounded neutral and calm.

She nodded, realized that he couldn't see her, and managed to say: "Not good, sir."

"We'll try to get you back to base soon for a quick break or at least get Erikson to check in with you," Lydecker promised. "Hold tight a bit longer. Alright?"

"Yes, sir."

 _There's a lot of resentment between Zack and Max, whether he's trying to convince her to ditch Seattle or ditch Manticore, he still sees himself as the big brother who knows best and Max as his baby sister. In families, old roles and ways of interacting can hold hard even long after they shouldn't when everyone is grown up and changed. That's how I see Max and Zack._

 _Maybe he likes her? I don't know. I see evidence for and against in the series and presented in other stories. I think Logan would see Zack as a boyfriend threat, whether he's aware of their shared history or because he's not aware of it, and whether he thinks he has a shot with Max or not. A non-biased person though? I don't know how that person would perceive the Zack-Max relationship. Any preferences? I'm inclined to stick with the show and keep any potential romantic love on the DL in favour of ML._


	12. Cold Comfort III

**Cold Comfort III**

 **Zack**

Zack returned to the warehouse. Max was now straddling a chair backwards while Lydecker was still bound and blindfolded. MAc was so engrossed in spilling the beans to Lydecker that she didn't even hear Zack creep back in. Zack waited and watched for a suitable moment to make his presence known.

Max looked distressed. The poker face she kept up even as he tried to wind her up had crumpled now that he was gone. Zack's stomach twisted. It wasn't that he wanted to upset Max, just that tough love was the only way to un-brainwash her, but that didn't make it easier to bare.

Didn't make it easier to watch Max confess her sins to the devil incarnate while she had guarded herself against her own brother. It was completely messed up. It wasn't so much Max being so conditioned, so docile and obedient that it overrode any ounce of self-preservation. It was that she seemed to innately trust Lydecker and was happy to subject herself to discipline to fix her perceived failings.

Still, though, Max hadn't reported Zack to Lydecker. She had even gone as far as directly lying to Lydecker without faltering. These were good signs. Maybe this behavior just fell in line with her operation parameters to capture Ben and disregard the others rather than defiance or loyalty but Zack was measuring it as progress.

Zack waited until they stopped talking before flagging his return.

"Catching up?" he asked sarcastically.

Max flipped him off. Zack smirked. This, _this_ , is why he believe Max could be turned. She was sarcastic and willful, just like the kid he remembered.

"What did you tell him? You've _obviously_ been talking."

Like he hadn't listened in to every single word and didn't already know. It did hurt to confirm whether Max's story matched up with reality.

"The truth. Well, mostly. He thinks that you believe I'm one of the runaways, that I didn't tell you the whole story."

"What does he want you to do?"

"Nothing. Play along," said Max. "There's no TAC team, if that's what you're asking. He wants Brin out of enemy hands more than he wants her back so he's okay with you running that op and won't risk compromising it. "

"How _kind_ of him," Zack sneered.

Zack didn't want to do Lydecker's dirty work for him. He didn't want Lydecker's fucking blessing either. Yes, Zack _did_ want to rescue Brin but this was way too risky. He was only being this reckless to rattle, maybe even inspire, Max. It was Max who had always prone to impulsivity, was driving this convoluted plan while still striving to be perfect soldier.

Zack eyed Max. "Right now, I'd rather kill him and take one for the win. That's gonna make life difficult for you, right? How do you play escapee _while_ protecting his life from me?"

"I'd win," said Max, calmly, with complete confidence of someone that was right and didn't need to argue. "You know that, right? Got a couple extra years training and field work on you while you're lounging and scurrying around out here. I'd _kick your ass_. So yeah, go ahead, make my life difficult Zack, you've been doing such a good job so far, it doesn't make sense to quit. I'll win. That's you and Brin apprehended and I get a cookie for going above and beyond."

"I'd rather _die_ than go back there," Zack insisted, equally firmly.

"That could be arranged," returned Max.

Loudly now, so that Lydecker was included too, Zack dropped to arguing and reverted back to the plan and said: "He's right. She's being held at Fort Zavier."

"That's Jake Sanders' command. I can't believe it. We served together," said Lydecker.

"We'll be sure to send him your regards," Zack quipped.

"Here's a layout of the base," said Zack, showing Max the map, realising that she hadn't seen it earlier. Logan had given Zack the file and Max carefully didn't look at it.

This was before the plan, while she was still trying to figure out how to reconcile loyalty to Manticore with maintaining her cover. Step one, apparently, was deliberate wilful ignorance. Can't report what she didn't know. It was a clever sort of brainwashing, far from 100% effective, but just enough to keep her toeing the line.

"We'll move out when it gets dark," said Max.

"You'll never get out of there alive. Listen to me. I know Sanders. I can get us on base. I can call in a TAC team-"

"And then what? Take her back to Manticore?" Zack interrupted.

"I would give my life rather than see Manticore technology end up in the hands of the enemy," Lydecker insisted.

"You may have a chance, you're coming with us," said Max, finally managing to muster up some flippancy and disrespect towards her commander, getting into her rogue character.

"What?" said Zack, pretending to be outraged for Lydecker's benefit.

"With him along, we can waltz right through the front doors."

"He'll double-cross us in a heartbeat," Zack argued.

"He may want to, but he can't. We're the only hope he has to get Brin away from Sanders. Isn't that right, _Donny_?"

Max hesitated before saying the name, clearly psyching herself up for it, clearly uncomfortable with the name on her tongue and preferring 'sir' or 'Colonel' but nevertheless managing to say it and say it with attitude.

 _Go Max._

Max went to take off Lydecker' blindfold. Zack pretended to stop her. "He'll know what we look like."

"We'll worry about that when we get Brin back," Max dismissed.

"For the record, I don't like this," said Zack.

"Noted."

Zack wasn't one for should have or could have or contemplating alternatives. He was more practical than that. Things were what they were. No whinging or dwelling or wishing was gonna change it. Still, though, he could help but wonder if things wouldn't be playing out almost the same if Max had escaped.

She'd hit Seattle, make the same friends, including Logan, and probably search out the others, and certainty disregard Zack. This whole conversation was pretend, Zack knew that, but at the same time was convinced that it could have happened word-for-word except for real if Max was a real escapee.

Not that it mattered. Because Max wasn't. Not yet anyway.

* * *

 **Lydecker**

Lydecker worried about 452. It was one thing sending her out after 493, who was irrational and delusional, but entirely something else to put her up against Zack. Worse again then to specifically tell 452 to obey Zack against all her training.

The last time 452 obeyed Zack was during the '09 escape and she then subsequently spent years learning and re-learning not to make a mistake like this ever again. It should be more ingrained into her mind than even her own designation. Asking her to temporarily disregard this rule was likely to either fail right off-bat and/or have major long-term repercussions.

It was actively looking for trouble. It was the sort of thing Lydecker arrange if he was intentionally setting 452 up for certain failure. It was ironic given that wanted her to succeed, not in the broad sense that he wanted all the kids to do well, but he specifically and specially was hoping she would do okay on this mission.

 _And was making it harder._

It _was_ important to push X5s to failure during training exercises. It made them stronger, better and tougher. Each of them had colossally failed dozens of times. Usually the failures would be wiped or redeemed or there was some sort of safety net. Not always, but usually, and this was a set-up without a safety net and he didn't want her to fall.

Sitting in the back of the car on the way to Sanders' base, 452 looked shaky and pale. Her hands were balled into fists and she stared vacantly out the window. This, Lydecker knew from experience, was the way 452 looked when she was on the verge of seizures.

Defying her conditioning (albeit under his specific orders) was presumably fucking up her synaptic patterning that were labile to begin with, meaning behavioural modification and imminent migraines if these had not already hit her. This was not so much a problem but with her genetics, migraines and seizures exacerbated each other until she lapsed into a coma.

How far could Lydecker push 452?

Recapturing 734 wasn't worth breaking 452. She wasn't expendable. None of them were especially expendable, each being worth millions, but some were worth more than others and 452 was one of them.

Despite her flaws, 452 was one of their top X5 units. She consistently performed well, especially in tricky operations, and always received excellent feedback. For the number-crunchers, 452 was a shining star of the X5s.

The way it worked out with available assignments and skill sets, 452 did a significant number of babysitter and prop operations that were short and well paid and had done so several years before her peers meaning she was one of the productive and profitable units.

A hypothetical undercover mission might yield only reconnaissance intel and no financial profit and take a month. This information could be invaluable but if a number couldn't be put on it then it became a zero and that looked awful shoddy compared with half a dozen babysitter ops over the same period that each bought in tens of thousands if not more.

In the greater scheme of things, guarding a rich and paranoid celebrity's kids was frivolous, unimportant and a waste of limited X5 resources, especially compared with counteracting a terrorist threat and matters of national security. However, in an excel file weighing up metrics and measurable, it looked damn good.

It made 452 look good. Not expendable. Not without have a hell of a lot of explaining to do to the committee. This was the reason Lydecker would cite, but really, it was the least important to him.

452 wasn't expendable because of who she was. Right now, watching her in the mirror, Lydecker was especially reminded of his deceased wife who had been 452's inspiration. He couldn't quite put his finger on why it suddenly seemed so stark to him now.

Lydecker had long since mapped out the physical similarities, recognised (or tricked himself into recognising anyway) some familiar facial expressions and gestures and compared and contrasted personality attributes and temperament.

 _Lipstick._

It hit Lydecker like a punch in the stomach.

452, like the others, never wore make-up on base, and only wore it on jobs that required the aesthetic or for concealment. Lydecker had probably seen and paid little attention to dozens of different looks.

Contouring, contacts and hair dye made 452 look like a completely different person on the CIA jobs that had her be a teenage human prop for different agent or as a bodyguard for an old money Virginian family. A ball gown and plastered on make-up was necessary for the annual White House Correspondents' association (where she posed a guest while providing extra security back-up).

This time, though, was different, because it wasn't a make-up artist that designed the look per prescribed mission parameters. It wasn't 452 trying to impersonate a relative or be someone else. No trickery or agenda. It was just something that 452 herself had purchased and decided to wear as an arbitrary detail for the job.

An all too familiar deep red Chanel lipstick that Lydecker recognised because it used to be his deceased wife's signature colour. It had originally belonged to her older sister, who Alice had idolised, and became Alice's.

And now it was 452's.

Unlike his wife, who wore purples and greens, and preferred vibrant deep colours, and teased Lydecker for being boring and drab with blues and greys, 452 teamed the signature lipstick with a non-descript monochromatic outfit.

And now Lydecker couldn't un-see the lipstick. And he realised that he was staring too hard and too long. 452 hadn't noticed, but there was a tick in 599's jaw and a hardness in his eyes that suggested 599 was all too aware and jumping to entirely the wrong assumptions.

"How severe are they?" Lydecker asked to take them back onto safer ground. "The seizures, I mean."

"Bad sometimes," said 452 after a pause.

She narrowed her eyes at him as though trying to figure out his angle. Lydecker, of course, knew exactly the state of 452's seizures. He had spent time weighing up how to manage them while 452 was on this job. It was Erikson that said not to bother about it.

"The med-band is fairly insensitive but it's sufficient to alert us to anything severe enough to need attention. They'll be more of a discomfort than a threat," Erikson had dismissed. "Let her suffer. She'll be fine."

"Right now? How would you rate this one?"

"Non-existent," she replied, denying it.

In reality, 452 needed to be stabilised ASAP before her medical condition spiralled further. She would pull off the 734 rescue mission. However, Lydecker wasn't sure about keeping her on this 493 bait job. It was unfortunate but preferable to risking fatality.

He'd leave the decision with Erikson.

Erikson knew just how much to push 452. He had the requisite insight (that Lydecker lacked himself) to see into 452's mental and physical wellbeing and make an informed and safe decision.

"We have treatments now, you know," Lydecker added.

The conversation was for 599's benefit. It was both a means of distraction and sewing the seed about voluntarily returning to Manticore. Unlikely, perhaps, but it was good to make it seem like a viable option with benefits.

"Do you make house calls, or should I go to Manticore for my meds?" 452 quipped.

Lydecker never minded 452's witty repartee. He couldn't, in good conscience, encourage that sort of attitude (though he was certain that Erikson did based on the correlation of X5s and X6s that associated with him and their tendency to backchat) but it did amuse him the occasions that he witnessed it.

Not so amusing coming from 599. His backchat and snarky comments were distinctly hostile, disrespectful and challenging. His actions matched this attitude too. 452, although she might toss off a one-liner or make a snide observation, followed it up with deference that was more palatable whether that was on base or while pretending to be a rogue in front of 599.

"Would it really be as bad as all that?" Lydecker asked.

"Yeah, well, thanks for the offer, but my rock-band is gonna take off any day now so I'm gonna stick with that," said 452, neatly avoiding the question like Lydecker expected. 452 wasn't defiant enough to directly argue with him and she couldn't be seen by 599 to cave in, which only left deflection.

"Do you want to spend your life running?"

She shrugged.

"Well, you don't have to, you know. You can always come home," Lydecker offered.

"The only one going back there is you. And you keep this up, you will be going back in a body bag," 599 threatened. His knuckles were white around the steering wheel. He stared directly ahead, refusing even look at Lydecker. He added, "We're nearly there. Remember to keep it simple."

Lydecker got them onto the base without any trouble and then readily initiated the planned alleged double-cross to get the X5s down to the brig where 734 was being held.

The security measures were pathetic: the X5s searched for weapons, wrists bound with rope and no shoes and chucked into a basic cell. It was something of a miracle how Sanders had gotten hold of 734 running this sort of show. Sanders clearly didn't know and wasn't prepared for what he was dealing with X5s.

This meant 734 wasn't on point. Seizures? Unlikely. Something worse. Something like progeria perhaps. Lydecker's suspicions were confirmed the second he laid eyes on her. 734 looked aged and fragile lying in one of the cells.

He explained the condition to Sanders. "It's a form of progeria, similar to Werner's Syndrome. It's a spontaneous, rapid mutation of the genome; expresses in the form of highly accelerated aging. Three of the X5 group developed it. She's the fourth...as far as I know. We're going to need to ice her down to bring down her core temperature, slow down her metabolic rate."

"She going to last long enough for me to lay her off to my clients?" Sanders asked.

"Two or three days, maybe," said Lydecker.

Realistically, less than a day. If 734 wasn't in Manticore by the morning, she was a goner. Lydecker eyed 599. Would 599 allow it? Unlikely. Looks like they'd have to do this the hard way where his people would collect 734's body from a hospital the day after tomorrow.

"All I really need is to have her breathing when the taillights disappear in the morning," said Sanders, looking reassured. "But, Deck, they're not going to want to pay much for damaged goods."

"Dead or alive, her genetic code is worth millions. And, besides, we have the other two to sell. They're the top of the X5 group," Lydecker promised.

With this, Lydecker and Sanders exited the cell block, leaving the X5s guarded by 4 soldiers. Lydecker didn't bother advising the men about how to handle the X5s. It wouldn't do them any good.

He and Sanders retired to Sanders' office where Sanders offered him scotch and talked shop. Lydecker played along, quibbling over percentages and deals, waiting for Sanders to make his move.

The gun was in the fridge. Lydecker spotted the set up a mile away and in anticipation he had pocketed a knife from one of the distracted guards who had been oogling 452 in the mess hall.

Sanders turned to shoot, but before he had a chance, Lydecker threw the knife into his chest. He took the gun and the radio and waited for the Sanders' soldiers to report the breakout.

"Majors Sanders, we have a situation," reported one.

"This is Lydecker. Over," Lydecker replied.

"Where's the Major?"

"He's in the can. What's the sitrep?"

"One of the female prisoners hung herself," said the solider, sounding panicky, not clear minded enough to see through a basic trick or feel suspicious about Lydecker manning Sanders radio, just relieved to report and escalate the problem to someone else.

"Open the damn door. Do it now," shouted another solider.

"Watch the others," said the other one. "You…face the wall."

"Do not open those cells," ordered Lydecker without any urgency, just playing along, pretending like he was trying to stop the escape.

Lydecker called in a TAC team to duke it out with Sanders people as a distraction to give the X5s an easier escape route rather than a genuine attempt to apprehend them. Not that TAC team or even the X5s knew this.

Once the appropriate amount of time passed, Lydecker spoke into the radio. "I know you're monitoring comms; I trained you to. If you take Brin, she'll die. You can't do anything for her. Let my people take care of her. They've done it before with other X5s."

Then, knowing that 734 would choose Manticore and that 452 would go back with her, Lydecker rang Erikson to give the man a heads-up. He could deal with 452.

For Erikson, 734 was practically a gift-wrapped present. Erikson would drop everything to play with that toy. Especially because the toy would be broken on a set schedule so it was quick blink-and-miss-it opportunity. And Erikson had always made a lot of time for 452. It was a stipulation of his arrangement with Lydecker, but it was likely to be something more than that. Lydecker hadn't

 _Lydecker is one my favourite bad guys. He's so horrible and human at the same time. He doesn't see himself as bad. He believes that Manticore is right, that he is doing the right thing. He preserved a little bit of his wife in Max so he cares about her wellbeing more than he should. He has played favourites more than he should with her too._


	13. Back to Base I

**Back to Base I**

 **Max**

"She's getting weaker," Max observed in a clinical, detached way. She paused. "Your call on what to do."

They drove in silence. Max had switched off to radio to tune out Lydecker once they had heard the gist of his offer. She did it without thinking and then had to obsess on the casual carelessness of such an action (it ran major alarm bells for bad though patterns).

After this, Zack drove in tense silence and Max watched Brin struggle to catch her breath.

"We're together. Right now that's all the matters," Zack insisted.

Max didn't say anything, didn't need to say anything, because Brin was clearly dying, and choosing inaction was choosing death. Logan's medical contacts wouldn't be able to save Brin. That was a pipedream. The choice was Manticore or death. And it wasn't her place to choose.

"I don't want to die. Please…don't let me die," whispered Brin.

Zack flinched, looking stricken. "You turned out okay, Max, she'll be fine in there, right?"

Max turned out the way she did as a by-product of the way she was handled. Erikson had straight-up admitted it was special treatment and warned her she needed to keep earning it or it would disappear and she was screwed. Max earned it every day. It wasn't free special treatment, not by a long shot, but that didn't negate the fact that things were different for her. Much different than Jace or the others who hadn't defected with the rest of their unit in '09.

Max received her special treatment. She was assigned a decent psy-ops handler. She was isolated from the X5 stream. She missed a huge amount of regular training. She was sent out on jobs way too early. This wasn't the typical Manticore experience.

Moreover, she couldn't speak for the Seattle base where Brin was surely headed. Max had never set foot there. Erikson had insinuated that each of the three bases was different but that was all Max knew. Erikson had bounced between them for awhile there for some sort of comparison study.

"Not like a McDonalds franchise, not the way it works," he had said off-handily about his findings.

Max didn't know if that meant better, worse or just different. At the time, she hadn't felt inclined to question this statement or speculate about it. She hadn't cared. They didn't talk about it again.

Finally, Max shrugged and said quietly, "One way to find out."

Louder, for Brin's benefit, Max said: "You're gonna be alright."

"And someday, no matter what happens, I'm going to come for you, that's a promise," Zack added.

Zack pulled the car over on the side of the road. His fingers clenched around the steering wheel.

"I'll stay with her," Max volunteered. "You can get a headstart outta here. I'll give you thirty minutes before calling it in."

"You're going back?" Zack asked, realising what Max meant by this. He looked surprised and a little betrayed.

"Just temporarily," said Max. "Not to steal Brin's medical emergency glory, but not feeling so peachy myself. Gonna check myself in. Get some of the top-quality meds. Tryptophan just not cutting it."

Zack nodded. "Mind yourself."

Mercifully, he cut himself off at this and didn't ask Max to mind Brin.

Still though, the unspoken words hung between them in the air. Zack looked like he desperately wanted to ask this favour, to seek the reassurance even though he must he knew better than to believe it.

Despite Max's expertise in deception, she preferred honesty, and she wasn't ready to hurt Zack with honesty or lie to him.

"Mind yourself too," said Max.

* * *

 **Max**

Home sweet home.

Erikson was waiting for her when the helicopter touched down and handed her a chocolate milkshake, a jacket and a fake staff ID for nurse Chloe Wilson. Max slung the lanyard around her neck without questioning it, zipped up the coat and took a long slurp of the milkshake.

Erikson always had a different non-medical remedy for her and seemed to believe in the powers of chocolate.

The milk, he claimed, genuinely did help. There was documented evidence. Milk alone though, he felt, was insufficient. It was milk flavoured with strawberry syrup or in chocolate mint ice-cream or a hazelnut latte or, this time, a Hershey's flavoured chocolate milkshake.

"How you doing, Goldilocks?" he asked.

He leaned over to check her pulse and then temperature without waiting for her answer. In his other hand, he held his own half-finished milkshake.

Max held her hand up in a fifty-fifty gesture. It shook badly. Her head still pounded. If anything, it was worse now, but this was probably because it was safe to let go, to lose control.

"Let's go for a walk," he suggested, linked an arm in one of hers, and led them towards the dark grounds. Neither of them spoke until after they had completed the first perimeter. It was a comfortable sort of silence rather than a challenge to see who would crack first.

Max drank her milkshake, crunched the leaves under foot and listened to the birds chirping in the trees. It was peaceful. It allowed her to comb through and calm her frantic thoughts, identify the fluctuating patterns and resolve them in something more normal.

"I called Colonel Lydecker 'Donny'," Max confessed after some time.

Erikson laughed at this. "The Colonel is pretty tolerant with backtalk but yeah that's pushing it I'd say. Still, better choice than telling him to go fuck himself as per Rob's advice."

"Can you tell him that?" Max muttered.

"I absolve you," Erikson quipped, miming a cross motion with his left hand still holding the milkshake cup. He shrugged. "You were playing a role. Don't worry about it."

Max nodded. She didn't know why she came out with 'Donny' in the warehouse. She had been gearing up for putting on a show and then geared way too far and the remark was falling out of her lips before she even knew it.

Zack had looked a little shocked. Amused and satisfied, sure, and happy believing that he was getting into her head, maybe one step closer to getting her to defect. Definitely surprised. It wasn't something he himself would have come out with but probably for a whole other set of reasons than her ones.

"You were right about Za, um, 599, I mean. I shouldn't have gone anywhere near him," Max admitted.

"Didn't he find you?"

"Well, yeah, but I guess I didn't really think it was a big deal and I let him get under my skin about…stuff," said Max.

Erikson's interest seemed piqued about what 'stuff' entailed but he sidestepped around his curiosity and focused in on the crux of the matter.

"What can you do to protect yourself?" asked Erikson.

Max shrugged. Wasn't her indoctrination his job? Wasn't he supposed to give her the answers? That's the way this usually worked.

Erikson seemed to read her mind and hear these thoughts. "You're big and bold enough to figure this out and manage it for yourself I should think. Or are you expecting me to hold your hand forever?"

This seemed like a hypothetical question so Max didn't answer it. It wasn't something she had considered much but now that Erikson mentioned it, well yeah, Max did expect the same status quo to exist based on the way things had worked for the last ten years.

But things hadn't been the same. Erikson had always been pushing her and twisting the rules and shifting expectations. It had been glacial and gradual and unnoticeable at the time. Now flagged, it seemed glaring and obvious.

"Are you telling me to _grow up_?" Max asked in the ensuring silence that suggested that maybe this question wasn't so hypothetical.

Erikson snapped his fingers and pointed his index one at her. "Bingo. Knew you were a smart cookie. That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Gee, I'm gonna miss Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and all my lovely toys," said Max sarcastically.

"That's the point of this mission," said Erikson. He paused and then started again from a different point. "You know like playing softball isn't just learning how to use a bat, which ostensibly is the goal, but it's also learning teamwork and implicit soft skills. You see my example?"

Max nodded her understanding.

"Your implicit learning opportunity here is not needing a leash or hand-holding or orders to be successful. It's using your own internal resources to make it happen. Ostensibly, it's capture 493, that's what we let you believe, that _is_ a priority, but that's the tip of the iceberg. The real deal is you learning how to do the right thing not just because someone told you it's the right thing but because you know and believe it is right."

Max eyed Erikson, feeling absolutely lost for words as this sudden revelation. This meant that her continued cooperation with Manticore ethos was her entirely her own responsibility. It wasn't up to Zack or Erikson or Lydecker to push her or prevent her from going off the rails.

It was up to her.

 _Shit._

Max was only familiar with not trusting herself when it came to her own mind so this seemed like an entirely unfair and unexpected burden. What about her aberrant metal patterns? She wasn't fit for this job. Tactical decisions? Max had all the self-confidence in the world. But this? Not so much…

"I think I prefer the behavioural modification programme in the clinic where you tell me what to do and how to do it over this night time nature walk philosophizing and empowering," she commented.

Erikson smirked. "And this time next year, you're gonna say remember that pleasant walk where we spotted owls and chatted about learning growth, can't we go back to those fun days and not this new thing."

"Can't wait," Max muttered. She finished off the milkshake.

"By the way," said Erikson. "There is marijuana in that milkshake. I spiked it. Just FYI."

"Um," Max said. Max looked down at the empty cup and back and Erikson. Was he joking? "Why?"

"Well, a derivative of the active compound, TCH, to be accurate about it. The take home message is that weed has some useful medical benefits and has been helpful for controlling seizures and managing migraines in clinical studies. Solving two of your problems. And like tryptophan it's readily accessible out there."

"Isn't it a recreational psychoactive drug?"

Max was still stuck on this part. It had never occurred to her that drugs were something she could do while on this job. Did she want to get stoned? Herbal was a strong advocate, for sure. As a default, she opted towards wholesome clean living and this meant no drugs.

No major loss. But Max hadn't considered all the food choices available to her that weren't bland maximally nutritious Manticore-approved foods. Like a sucker, Max had been eating porridge for breakfast when she could have been eating pop tarts or whatever the hell she wanted.

Porridge was literally the mascot for all the health food that Max didn't want to eat but couldn't refuse. The Manticore canteen didn't offer alternative options. This even included the no-breakfast option that Max had tried out years ago but rapidly got so much grief that she ate the stupid porridge.

However, she was under no such compulsion on this job to go out, buy it, cook it and eat it. That was it. She was dumping whatever porridge she had left and wouldn't buy anymore. Mornings were now gonna be all about bagels and cream cheese. And coffee.

Wait. What this food thought tangent something real or marijuana-induced? Max felt like she was way too much of control freak to enjoy the euphoria experience. Nope, for her, it would be all about the paranoia and anxiety.

"Are you having _fun_ yet?" he asked mockingly, smirking.

"Did _you_ have some?"

"It would have been rude not to," he said with a careless shrug.

"I'm calling it: weirdest psy-ops session yet," said Max. "You can't top this."

"Funny that you say that," said Erikson, like he had been waiting for this opening.

Max groaned.

"The precise details with handling of 734 are up in the air. Base politics, bullshit, doesn't matter, but I will be dealing with her for at least the first 48 hours post-surgery. I want you to consider getting involved. Teaching is the best way to learn so it could be quite a psy-ops learning experience for you. Or it could be a fucking disaster. Consider it."

Max agreed to consider it.

* * *

 _The writing has been on the wall along. The mission parameters obviously weren't the best ones to achieve the so-called capture-Ben mission. That's because this was only a small part of the bigger picture. The whole thing is a test, an opportunity for Max to demonstrate her unwavering loyalty in the face of freedom and the outside. And maybe it's more than that. Note that this scene isn't from Erikson's perspective and it couldn't be because then I'd have to reveal different agendas and the info-dump isn't interesting, so instead it's gonna play out over time._

 _Obviously, this chapter isn't an episode. Essentially, it replaces 'Blah, Blah, Woof, Woof' because Lydecker isn't looking for Max. He knows exactly where she is and does not want to mess up her cover with wanted pictures._


	14. Back to Base II

**Back at Base II**

 **Brin**

Brin woke up in hell. It was med-bay, which was the first circle of Manticore hell. The last one was Psy-ops, which presumably was her next destination. Lucky her that she got to skipped all the middle ones.

She wasn't alone. There were a few medics buzzing around talking in jargon about her condition while completely ignoring her as person lying chained to the bed in front of them. There weren't any other patients. Presumably she in some sort of isolation, not allowed to mingle with the drones until she was one of them.

"She's awake. Ready as she ever will be to deal with Erikson," said one of them into a phone. He rolled his eyes and muttered: "God knows I'll never be."

There was a pause as the person on the other side of line spoke. The words were muffled and indecipherable to Brin but presumably they were some sort of question of understanding because the medic replied, lying, saying:

"I said: tell him he's allow in."

"Who's Erikson?" Brin asked, not expecting a response.

The medics rarely spoke directly to them before the escape. They acted like the X5s were dumb lab rats incapable of listening and speaking despite their documented super IQs. Brin didn't remember feeling frustrated about it at the time but it was gonna piss her off this time around.

It was easier to talk, to breathe, now that the crackly tightness clutching her chest had eased off. The sensation of burning from the inside-outside had morphed into a type of chilliness.

"He's the condescending and superior asshole version of Doogie Hoosier," the medic all but snarled, his voice thick with a Scottish accent and annoyance, unlike the more neutral accent from earlier.

"So many fun adjectives for me, but you missed out on my name and job description so all-round poor description," said a new voice, from the doorway, sounding quite pleasant and unconcerned. This one held trace of an English accent.

This was Manticore, USA, right? She hadn't woken up in Hogwarts or something like that? That was a version of reality that Brin could get on board with. She was even okay being physically stuck in Manticore but delusional enough to believe she was at a magical boarding school. Brin knew better than that though. She couldn't bring herself to believe that she was anywhere other than Manticore, which had gained some staff with exotic accents.

"Yeah? What's that?" asked Brin.

The owner of the voice quickly crossed the room to stand near Brin's bed meaning that she could see him. He was a tall Indian guy wearing a plaid shirt and chinos with really good hair. The other person that came with him, a woman judging by the clicking heels, stayed at the edge of the room.

"Dr. Dean Erikson and I'm temporarily in charge of your psychological wellbeing now that this lot have stabilised the physiological emergency," said the guy. "That's my assistant over there, Ms. Chloe Wilson."

Erikson gestured grandly as thought he was a stage magician preparing to cut beautiful his assistant in two pieces. The woman would be beautiful. Brin knew this, because the Scottish medic stopped sneering at Erikson to spend a full minute checking her out. It was a long slow appraisal, and judging by his eye level, it lingered on the level of her ass and chest.

Brin presumed Chloe would be wearing a tight sparkly dress and posing with a magic wand or something tacky, but reality proved much less surreal. She wore a tank top, biker jacket and knee high boots under an opened lab coat. In one hand, she held a cardboard cup carrier, like the ones found in coffee shops, with three cups of coffee.

The other hand was in a bandage and she had apparently been attempting to text around it when she paused in the doorway but had now given up, crossed the room to put down the coffee (and a clipboard too that Brin hadn't even seen Cloe holding and couldn't figure out how she juggled it with everything else so maybe she was a little bit magic.)

The second Chloe's good hand was free, the medic was shaking it and introducing himself, and in her personal space. "Harry Morgan. Pleasure to meet you, Chloe."

Somebody had a crush.

Thing was, Chloe was way out of Morgan's league. She was like twenty years younger than him and completely uninterested. Chloe smiled tightly. Her response was polite in a way that completely brushed him off rather than welcomed in.

"Likewise, Doctor Morgan."

Chloe turned slightly away from the man and waved at Brin. "We've already met in the helicopter on the way here but you were probably too busy trying not to die to pay attention to me."

It clicked with Brin now.

She had been fooled with the get-up and fake name to spot that woman was, in fact, Max. Max who had been working with Zack to get her away. What the hell was she doing at Manticore?

"Yeah. I remember," said Brin.

She didn't expand on this statement. She wasn't sure how to play this so less said was safer. Call Max out? Play along? Play dumb?

"So, Chloe," said Morgan, apparently not getting the message that she didn't like him, and continuing to hassle her. "The birth date on your ID makes you out to be 25. You don't even look 21. How old are you really?"

"52, divorced twice and currently in a polygamous relationship with a dentist and an acrobat and has seven children," said Erikson.

Max threw him a look, seemingly taken aback by this highly specific and clearly inaccurate detail, but a little amused too. Her response wasn't as unhelpful or rude. "Good genes, I guess. Not something I don't hear every time I try to buy wine."

"And you're not, you know?" said Morgan, gesturing vaguely, not wanting to come out and ask whatever he was asking. He was looking at her a little strangely.

"Not what?" She looked blank.

"One of _them_." Erikson had a knowing look. His voice was withering. "He thinks: gee, she's beautiful and young, and I'd like me some of that but that probably makes her one of X5s and off-limits, better gawk at her neck and question her age to subtly check and failing that just outright ask."

Brin could see why Morgan didn't like Erikson now. They clearly had history and bad blood. Erikson was sharp, incisive and funny in a way that could drew blood from ten feet away without lifting a weapon.

"Nope but I am engaged so off-limits," said Max, holding up her bandaged hand and then made a face when it didn't offer the ring proof she expected and instead was a layer of bandages.

Liar. Max was an X5, born bred and raised. And in seemed nothing short of outrageous to pretend otherwise while at Manticore. Shouldn't she be caught out in two seconds flat? Except her barcode was concealed, presumably with make-up, and she had an official ID and an accomplice willing to back up her story.

What was all that about?

"If you're done objectifying my assistant, could you leave us to deal with the actual X5 in the room?" asked Erikson, banishing the Morgan from his realm and the nurses too.

This only left the three of them. "What the _hell_ is going on?"

"Oh. That's need-to-know only and he doesn't need to know," said Max, casually and dismissively, waving away all the lies and Brin's confused suspicions. "I am an X5. I didn't runaway that night, that's just a pretence. There, you're up to speed."

"So _I_ need to know?" asked Brin.

"You're probably not gonna remember it so it's a moot point," said Erikson, shrugging in a careless way, as though this wasn't a horrible damning statement.

"Why the pretence?"

"See how the other half lives," said Max. She jerked her hand at Erikson. "He's got lots of fingers in lots of psychological case study pies, and the whole escapee thing is one. And I'm a guinea pig in the pie, so to speak."

Erikson nodded. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. _All about you_. Your experiences, your thoughts and feelings on your life and society in general. Hopes, fears, dreams. General reflections on life, the universe and everything. Tears, epiphanies and anger, bring it all, you can say whatever you'd like."

"How about a big, stinkin' pile of nothing?" Brin snapped.

Her mind was her own. She didn't want to trade it for the idle curiosity of a psychiatrist. Sure, Manticore would try to rip it all away from her and they probably would succeed but she still wanted to keep her thoughts and feelings as her own property, better lost rather than have them preserved in a journal as souvenir for who she once was.

"Your choice," said Erikson. "It's your one and only repercussion-free opportunity to say anything and be heard. Remember you're gonna be shutting up and listening for the foreseeable future so you ought to take it."

Brin didn't say anything to this, just clenched her teeth together and pressed her lips into a thin line.

In the ensuing silence, Erikson gestured for Max to hand him a cup of coffee that she picked up for herself. "Hmm?" she asked.

"Could you give me the coffee?" he said, rolling his eyes.

Max gave him a long look.

He sighed. "Simon says give me the coffee."

"Sure," she said, handing it over, and grabbing at different one for herself. This left one cup. "Does Simon want anything else? A bagel, perhaps?"

" _Now I do_. Why give me these ideas?" Erikson complained. He sat down beside the bed and took a long sip of the coffee. "This is actually good. I thought you couldn't even boil water to make the coffee?"

"That's what you gett for listening to a _specific_ Seattle-influenced coffee snob, ex-barista and all-round complainer," said Max. "You know what they're like with their coffee and what he's like. You shouldn't believe a single coffee related opinion he says."

"Touché," said Erikson. He cocked his head to the side and admitted: "but true."

Max drank some of the coffee too. "Coffee is coffee to me. I can fake the appreciation but I don't get it."

"Ah, well, with that attitude you're infusing the coffee beans with a cariogenic, that's why it isn't quite right," said Erikson.

"There is coffee for you too if you're not gonna use it as tool in an ill-advised escape attempt," said Max to Brin.

"Morgan, as much as he would like to throw coffee in my face, doesn't because of consequences," Erikson explained in lecturing-voice. "It's all pretend cooperation. You'd face a different set of consequences but the same choice to cooperate. That's life, right? Not an X5 thing. Just basic human functioning. We could all enjoy a nice cup of java together, play a rousing game of Simon Says and chat about current events. Or, you could stay restrained and un-caffeinated. Cooperation or not, it's the same end result for you."

"Why are you playing Simon Says?" Brin asked, focusing on the least important but must insane piece of information from Erikson's monologue.

"Yeah, Max, why _are_ we playing this little game?"

"It's kind of a long story," Max started.

"Ha. You lost," said Erikson, interrupting her, looking gleeful and smug. "Okay. My turn now."

"You ready to start?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Simon says are you ready to start?"

"Born ready," came the confident reply.

"It's to do with a friend of ours who drafted me on his team for this dumb competition," said Max. She glanced at her injured hand. "We were playing a practice round when this happened so he says it's proof I gotta step up my game. Dean is quite the connoisseur (instigator? Appreciator? Whatever) of such games so sharing my lame injury story with him has led us right here."

Max. Dean.

The names and the games. It was all very friendly and casual. And authentic too. Nothing about their interactions suggested that this scene was staged for her or some sort of trickery. It was just a dumb digression. Something that Brin wasn't ready to put up with not without coffee, especially not while they were drinking it right there with the aroma in the air and her cup going cold.

"Give me the damn coffee," said Brin.

Erikson pressed some dials on her bed so that the top raised up supporting her in a sitting position and unfastening one of the restraints on her wrists. Brin fisted and flexed her hand, enjoying the freedom of movement. Erikson didn't even flinch, not remotely on edge although Brin could have easily punched him in the face. Even at half-strength, she could land a hit that would take him off his feet and mess up his face for a week. They both knew this but he trusted her agreement to coffee as an agreement to be good. He was either dumb or very smart.

Max handed her the coffee. "The marijuana-free one so manage your expectations."

"Excuse me?"

"We are continuing to be a little stoned for medical benefit," Erikson said, as though this explained everything and not just confusing the matter further.

Well, it would explain the weird dynamic going on with them. And, although Brin had been messed up herself yesterday, it hadn't escaped her notice that Max didn't look so good either. Now Max looked near 100%, again, bouncing far more than a good night's sleep would account for. So, yeah, they probably were taking marijuana.

Manticore got a whole lot different in the last ten years.

Brin hadn't thought much about it how Manticore carried on over the years she was out of the hell hole, knowing on some level that it wouldn't stay static, but not bothered wasting more of her life on it. On some level, when she asked Zack to let her go back, she assumed it was still the same and that she knew the lay of the land, but that was clearly not true.

Reconnaissance.

"How do the other half live then?" Brin asked Max.

"Which half?"

"This half," said Brin. She gestured with her coffee cup to encompass the entire base. The place where she would be doomed to spent the rest of her days. "Your half."

Max shrugged. "I don't know anything about this half. Or third, I guess? There's three bases and I'm from a different one. Don't know how things work around these parts."

"In yours?"

"It's peachy," said Max, sarcasm-free, despite the apparently snide response.

"Wanna be more specific?"

"Wanna ask a specific question?" Max countered. "Breakfast sucks. The meds are great. What are you looking for?"

"Goldilocks over here is picky about her porridge and the cooks don't believe in changing it up, maybe throwing in a little sugar or trying apple flavour or chunky texture," Erikson clarified. "Do you really want to talk about Max though?"

"Isn't that why she's here? To be a model shining example of an X5 for me?"

Erikson eyed Max critically. "She's not exactly the designation that comes to mind for textbook X5. She's here because she was involved in getting you back, and then because I was waiting for her to lose the game, but I don't need her anymore."

"In which case, people to see, places to go, things to do and so on. I'll leave you folks to it," said Max. She drained the last of her coffee and tossed the cardboard cup into a nearby paper bin.

Max left without any further ado, throwing a casual "good luck" over her shoulder.

Brin didn't know whether this wish was for her or Erikson. She was the one who needed it, but those two were the pals not her and Max. They hadn't been the tightest back in the day but they had been family. It was little disconcerting interacting with grown-up stranger Max that was so willing and happy to leave Brin to rot in this place.

Max wasn't rotting though.

Maybe Brin ought to request a Wyoming transfer? Things might not be so bad there. Except she had no power here, not autonomy to want (let alone demand) things for herself. At best, resist what they wanted. At worse, cave in and want what they wanted her to want. Two terrible choices.

Made all the worse because Brin chose this for herself. It had seemed like the lesser of the two evils when she was staring down death, but now looking at months of psy-ops stretching out before her and years, if not decades, being a drone, this seemed like the more difficult option.

Brin was tough.

She could do this.

But, first, she wanted to tell Erikson and thing or two. He was right. This was last chance to share her genuine final thoughts and he was all too ready to lap up so she might as well take advantage of it.

Might as well get started.

 _So, Brin's back at Manticore. I'm toying with keeping her a mindless solider that she becomes in the series or tweaking things so that she retains more of herself. I'm thinking complete resistance and non-compliance that she would have presented as in the TV series is the exact formula to get herself really fucked up in psy-ops. However, in this fic, seeing Max and being handled by Erikson, could give her a slightly different attitude, maybe convince her to play along, maybe even cooperate a bit, and Brin's personality might be better preserved._

 _Sleazy Doc is just sleazy Doc. Nothing is gonna happen there FYI. I'm only harking back to the whole consent thing I invented in an earlier chapter. Same way prisoners can't consent, neither can X5s. The whole Jace pregnancy thing shouldn't happen. I mean it's gonna but it shouldn't. But these measures explain why Lydecker is so pissed about it._


	15. Back to Base III

**Back to Base III**

 **Lydecker**

"That kid is a handful," commented Erikson, sounding quite happy about this information, rather than the frustrated.

Except that Erikson enjoyed difficult people. He liked figuring them out, hearing their anecdotes and other people's complaints and then he pushed their buttons or got bored and found a new interesting person. Good for him. Not so good for Brin.

It didn't bode well for her successful reindoctrination. If she fought tooth and nail in pys-ops, she would be broken down completely and built back up from the ground. She'd need to relearn everything, not just the last ten years, and even then, she would be completely uselessly docile and practically needing external instruction to blink and breathe. Originally, they had made the X5s too independent, which was problematic, but this level of dependence was equally problematic, not to mention a waste of their potential.

"If she stays here, they will be myopic to her potential, that's a given, but Renfro is already angling to use her as a tool in her machinations," Erikson continued.

This was exactly what Lydecker suspected. Renfro would make Brin her pet project, would enjoy taking one of Lydecker's kids for her own ends. She'd disguise it as a favour, or casual goading, but underneath that there would be an insidious agenda to discredit him.

"Problem is Brin's a troublemaker that has spent the last ten years Rumspringa-ing and in this time she has almost certainly had some dealings with Renfo amongst others," Erikson speculated. "She didn't admit to it. I didn't ask. You should."

Interesting. Erikson's conjecture was rarely incorrect. He had been the first one to predict the escape. Lydecker was willing to believe his instincts and decided to visit Brin the next day.

She was being held in medbay under observation for several days. While Brin was alive and stable, she was not necessarily well. Not yet. She looked well enough so presumably her extended stay was part caution and part medical curiosity.

Brin tensed upon seeing him and visibly put up her guard but didn't say anything defensive or hostile, just regarded him with a piercing intensity, completely unlike her vague semi-conscious state days before.

Lydecker returned her stare, ready to match it for as long as it took for Brin to back down. This was a dominance challenge. It wasn't something that tame X5s were prone to doing with their handlers, too conditioned to be subordinate to authority, but it was apparently common enough amongst themselves.

The last staring match Lydecker had with a transgenic was during the '09 break out with the then eight-year-old 452. She had been visibly shaking from the cold and, as it turned out, seizures too, gown drenched and icy, feet bare, lips blue, but resolved. He hadn't been prepared to shoot her like he had with Eva.

Eva had been armed with a gun, had just assaulted the guards to obtain said weapon, and had it pointed at him. It wasn't a difficult decision – it was an instinct. Lydecker saw a threat. He neutralised it.

Lydeceker couldn't shoot 452, not to neutralise, not even to injure. And 452 seemed to know this. In the end, 452 had only backed down because she fainted, eyeballs rolling up into eye sockets, and hit the ice with a hard thunk that cracked it open and sent her underneath its surface. She hadn't ever directly challenged his authority again.

Lydecker won this staring match with Brin too.

"Good morning, Colonel," Brin eventually said, in a neutral enough tone, after glancing away and refocusing her stare on his forehead and not eyes.

Lydecker nodded in acknowledgement at the use of his title, but he didn't buy the politeness or submission for a minute. It was a tactic. An interesting tactic though.

Brin wasn't just pretending to play to along, which was the next obvious alternative to outright defiance and attitude, but something more nuanced – pretending to pretend. It was all carefully mediated and executed.

Interesting.

Managed correctly, Brin might be a useful asset within weeks. It was do-able if it weren't for Renfro interfering. Lydecker was able to handle Renfro well enough, but the two things together were a synesthetic challenge.

"How are you doing, Brin?" Lydecker asked her.

Brin blinked a little at bit at her name in his mouth and didn't seem to know how to take it.

This wasn't in her script; wasn't something she could have predicted from their established dynamic as X5 and CO. It was more like a fatherly question and intonation and it came at her from left-field.

"Um, fine, all things considered," she said, with a small shrug, a careful movement that didn't jerk any of the IVs that she was still hooked up too. Adding, after a moment's thought, "sir."

Again, with the careful politeness, one that was apparently rusty and awkward from disuse, artfully done. She was switching gears, improvising with the new conversational detour, and seemed self-assured again.

"Good to hear that and to have you back home," said Lydecker.

He studied Brin's reaction to this intentionally provocative remark. It was minimal: a slight narrowing of her eyes, a set to her jaw, and the silence that spoke all too loudly of unvoiced attitude and defiance.

Lydecker waited the silence out.

"Wyoming is my old stomping grounds, 'home' if you will. This is like visiting relatives, not quite the same thing," Brin argued in the ensuing silence.

One of Alice's tricks, back from when she was a psychologist, that Lydecker ended up adopting in recent years was the use of strategic silences. Leaving sufficient uncomfortable space was usually enough to invite confession from the other party, enough for the other party to hang themselves on their own words.

Erikson, Renfro and several committee members were all relatively immune to this tactic, countered it with their own silence giving way to long meetings with prolonged dead space. Lydecker employed other strategies to deal with them.

"Moving in with relatives might be a more accurate analogy," Lydecker corrected in a mild tone.

It was important to immediately and consistently squash the mind-set that being recaptured was a temporary situation to be endured until an appropriate opportunity arose, and instead embed the idea that this was permanent arrangement. All the better if it was subtle and insidious without allowing argument.

This was one of the strategies that Erikson employed to handle the transgenics. On the face, it looked like casual conversation or banter. The friendlessness was disingenuous – a means of making his agenda palatable. It was a tactic, Erikson said, that worked for his role but would be incompatible for Lydecker as an officer to use on soldiers. This meant it was perfect for handling Brin.

"It _is_ important to be accurate in matters such as thing," she said with a wry smile. "In which case…'moving in' is dressing this up as something it's not. It's more like being put under receivership of Aunt Renfro."

As the word 'Aunt' left her mouth, Brin pulled a face, and seemed genuinely shocked a little horrified at Renfro being her Aunt. She quickly schooled her expression into something more neutral but it was too late.

Lydecker had already seen the unfiltered response and was processing it, fitting it in with the other information he held, and was coming up with some theories.

"Aunt Renfro, is it? That must have been quite some conversation she had with you this morning to leave with that title," Lydecker remarked.

"Mother," Brin corrected, something lighting up in her eyes. "That makes you…father. And this whole thing," she made an expansive hand gesture before continuing, "is a custody fight, one of the battles in the divorce war."

The answer was glib and confident – it showed-off surprisingly accurate, if superficial, insight into the power dynamics at Manticore. It posed a question.

"Whose custody do you want?" he asked

"Emancipation is ruled out?" she checked, stalling for time, and admitted: "You, _Dad_."

"Courts usually side with the mother, unfortunately, and I don't have the inclination to deal with disobedient spoiled kids," said Lydecker, laying out his assumption and proposition within the analogy: Brin distinctly preferred Lydecker to Renfro and Lydecker wasn't bothered unless Brin convinced him.

"If the courts had all the information about the relationship with the mother, they would rule father or foster care," said Brin neutrally.

Lydecker was quiet, measuring up this insinuation against reality. Why was Renfro, essentially an unknown to Brin, being cast as neglectful while Lydecker remained the good parent? It didn't add up unless those two had some sort of dealings like Erikson indicated.

It sounded like it was the sort of dealings, albeit incriminating, couldn't be used by Brin as direct leverage against Renfro. If she could, she would have just quietly gone about her blackmail without flagging it to Lydecker.

"Do you have court-admissible evidence?"

Brin shook her head. "No, sir, just a personal account y'know, the sort of one that would resonate with a father."

"That leaves you in a predicament, solider," Lydecler said, dispassionately, noting the way she stiffened as the title 'solider'.

He didn't ask for any further details and she didn't offer them. They just regarded each other in a silent stalemate across the room for several minutes.

"State your designation," Lydecker ordered.

"X-5 734," said Brin evenly, but pointedly did include the word 'sir' in her response this time.

"Your name?"

She hesitated. "X-5 734."

"Nickname?"

"Brin," she said, setting her jaw and lifting her chin, apparently fed up already with playing along.

"Brin, sir," Lydecker corrected, advising "mind your manners, solider."

The look she gave him could practically kill, but she duly corrected her answer. "Brin, sir."

"You can keep your nickname but you _will_ respond to your designation if used," Lydecker told her in a way that didn't allow disagreement.

Brin didn't argue, but she didn't exactly wholly consent to this proposition with her sullen silence.

"Repeat it back to me," Lydecker ordered, demanding her explicit (albeit unenthusiastic) cooperation.

"Repeat it back to me?" she said, archly, intentionally misunderstanding, but seemed to think the better of this response once she had spoken or seen his expression because she quickly added: "Yes, sir, I will respond to my designation, sir."

It might have been her first genuine response in this interaction. Everything else had been too carefully considered and parsed and pretended. The knee-jerk bad attitude, quickly followed up with conditioned response, was progress in the direction that Lydecker wanted.

"Under my command, I expect your obedience," Lydecker lectured. "Preferably happily and wholeheartedly, but uncomplaining and efficient is acceptable. Understood?"

"Understood."

Lydecker waited for the proper response, noting the waning of her manners, weighing up the meaning of this, and not coming to any explicit conclusions. Brin, while readily cooperating, was still only playing at cooperation, and it was impossible to know where one started and ended.

"I mean: understood, sir," Brin capitulated.

"If you object to your handling or orders, I will hear reasoned, polite arguments in private," Lydecker allowed, suspecting this token leniency and freedom would go a long way towards keeping Brin in line.

Lydecker didn't make any threats regarding potential disobedience of orders once administered. Years of strict and consistently enforced discipline already cemented those lessons and it would come back quickly enough as Brin resumed training. Lydecker would ensure this was ASAP - there had been quite enough testing and experimentation - and Brin had already missed too much training the last 10 years to postpone it any longer than strictly necessary.

It was impossible to predict how long this might take. Erikson seemed to believe that indoctrination could be fast-forwarded, if not out outright skipped, that typical measures would be more harmful than helpful. He was still withholding official comment, but shared his preferred course of action to influence and manage Brin's behaviour. He proposed subtle re-integration in place of explicit re-indoctrination: covertly assign Brin an X5 buddy. Not one of the stellar model X5s. One of the problematic ones, one of the popular ones, and allow peer pressure and peer acceptance do the hard work.

Lydecker certainly hoped so.

It would be very convenient for him.

* * *

 **Brin**

The expectation to behave appropriately was so absolute that Brin found herself conforming even without re-indoctrination sessions. It wasn't an especially conscious choice, no more than breathing, but it kept her life safe and peaceful. It meant she was free to recover without waging a simultaneous psychological/obedience battle.

Brin didn't make a fuss about the medical procedures not being explained to her or not signing consent forms, or anything that would typically expected as a patient. She swallowed the mystery pills, kept still in the MRI machines and let them poke and prod her as they wished without complaint, resistance or protest.

This docile obedience afforded Brin some minor privileges. She wasn't restrained or sedated. There was a single half-assed rotating guard watch that might as well have been a mannequin propped up outside. She got real cutlery with meals; in her hands a plastic spoon could cause considerable damage so giving her a steak knife and leaving her unsupervised and unrestrained was outrageous but that's what happened.

Brin complained about this to Erikson, who popped by regularly to talk.

"Yeah, that was on me, I was hoping you'd turn Morgan into the joker, but guess I didn't make my expectations clear enough. Next them, alright?" he quipped.

"Are you supposed to say things like that to me?" Brin questioned. "You're my psy-ops handler!"

"Ah, well, I'm not very conventional, and you're not dumb enough to let me plant that idea in your brain and then go an act on it, so no harm," said Erikson, shrugging.

"Prof. Snape taught me Occlumency too well, I guess," Brin murmured.

She wasn't so sure of this though. Erikson was persuasive and manipulative. Presumably, he was using his subtle voodoo brainwashing powers on her. This would go a long way towards explaining her uncharacteristic behaviour, but Brin couldn't identify any specific attempts of brainwashing to resist them.

Erikson mostly just listened and let her vent and argue. This was quite cathartic. As a kid, it was about speaking when spoken to and being seen and not heard, and as a teenager, no one took her opinions seriously and Zack was always too busy and bossy to listen. Brin had a lot to say and Erikson apparently had nothing better going on in his life and was happy to listen. And then he'd volley back some snarky comments and engage with her like she was still a real person.

It had been much harder dealing with Lydecker whose intense appraisal made Brin feel like she was nine years old and that he was about to browbeat her for a failed drill.

Their first meeting had come much too quickly. Lydecker had visited her fourth day back to Manticore. Brin heard him coming from down the hall, recognised his footfalls. Bile rose her throat, adrenaline coursed through her veins. The heart monitor beeped erratically.

Brin hated that Lydecker made her feel like this. Her knee-jerk response to instinctive fear was to lash out with attitude and hostility. This seemed reckless in her current predicament. Brin had two minutes to compose herself and decided to handle him with menacing politeness.

She swallowed the hard-dry lump in her throat and spoke first, setting the tone for this meeting. "Good morning, Colonel."

You couldn't win all the fights, and the one in which Brin recognised his authority and conceded to it was never one that she would win. It was a waste of energy and resources engaging on that front and he would be much too pleased to shove her submission down her throat.

"How are you doing, Brin?" Lydecker asked, settling down on the chair beside her bed, apparently planning on staying awhile.

Obviously, Lydecker knew their nicknames, but it was surreal to hear him directly address her by name like that. Brin recognised that he was only doing it in direct parallel to her using his title and that this was a tactic but it still unnerved her.

"Um, fine, all things considered," said Brin, shrugging, which was the truth, 'cause she had been much worse and expected this to be even worse than that, but it was all kind of okay. (She was managing her expectations). Hastily, she added, "sir."

"Good to hear that and to have you back home," said Lydecker, all smug and self-satisfied to have her back under his thumb.

This was probably the point in conversation where she should be angry and defiant and loud. That's how Lydecker expected this chat to go, was baiting her, so Brin kept taking the high road and kept her mouth shut. It wasn't a direct question or order so a response wasn't required.

But the silence got so long and uncomfortable that Brin had to say something. She couldn't quite bring herself to say, 'thank you, sir' and wasn't dumb enough to go with her genuine response (which was 'go screw yourself').

"Wyoming is my old stomping grounds, home if you will. This is like visiting relatives, not quite the same thing."

"Moving in with relatives might be a more accurate analogy," Lydecker corrected in an apparently mild tone but one that was absolute and didn't invite disagreement.

They bantered it back and forward and discussed her living arrangements once she was released from med-bay and stared each other down in silence. It was nothing like Brin expected until suddenly they were back on script.

"State your designation," Lydecker ordered.

"X-5 734," said Brin evenly, and bit back the customary and conditioned 'sir' that she should have tagged on at the end. She'd play along, but not too much, not yet anyway.

"Your name?"

Brin hesitated, and decided this was an obvious trick question, and repeated her designation again.

"Nickname?"

"Brin," she said.

"Brin, _sir_ ," Lydecker corrected, suddenly concerned about politeness. Third time was the charm. He added, "mind your manners, solider."

"Brin, sir," Brin replied. She should (but didn't) apologise.

"You can keep your nickname but you _will_ respond to your designation if used," Lydecker told her. It was probably the way God intoned 'let there be light' and then there was indeed light.

A response seemed totally unnecessary, at least in her opinion, but then Lydecker ordered her to repeat it back to him.

"Repeat it back to me?" Brin said, archly, intentionally misunderstanding, forgetting momentarily who she was and where she was and that Lydecker wasn't someone to screw around with, especially not when she wanted on his good side.

"Yes, sir, I will respond to my designation, sir," she quickly corrected, up-ing the manners to a 150%, before he verbally called her out on her attitude.

"Under my command, I expect your obedience," Lydecker lectured. "Preferably happily and wholeheartedly, but uncomplaining and efficient is acceptable. Understood?"

"Understood," Brin agreed and then had to modify her response to please him: "I mean: understood, sir."

"If you object to your handling or orders, I will hear reasoned, polite arguments in private," Lydecker allowed.

"Thank you, sir," said Brin. She figured this was placating bullshit and intended to test it as soon as was reasonable.

* * *

 _A/n: one more chapter with Brin and then back to Max. I hadn't fully intended to spend so much time on Brin, but I wrote several Manticore scenes and didn't know which ones to cut and just kept them all in. (Hence the same scene from both Brin and Lydecker's perspectives). I suppose Brin's miserable time in Manticore is a good contrast to Max living it up in Seattle._


	16. Back to Base IV

_**Author's note:** here at long last. There was a couple of unfinished bits that I kept skipping to work on later chapters. Always, shout-out to TheLadyInBlackAndPink for bringing up Alec in her review - excellent timing as Alec makes his first feature here. Well predicted! Not much of him yet. _

**Brin**

"How are you feeling, pet?" asked Doctor Morgan in cheerful and upbeat tone you might talk to a dog, while checking on Brin's vitals the next day.

His hands were warm and calloused but gentle. He didn't ask permission before touching her or pushing her gown aside, but just did it in this matter-of-fact entitled fashion that Brin had gotten accustomed to (it still _felt_ invasive and presumptive, but not scandalous and shocking).

"Fine, sir," said Brin, metaphorically wagging her tall, and not snarling or barking, or conveying the true sentiment.

"Good, good, and let's just see out everything sounds in here," he replied, a little distractedly, putting his stethoscope in his ears to listen to her lungs. "Breathe in deeply for me, okay?"

"Long exhale," he continued, urging her to, "keep going, keep going. Okay and again. On three…one, two, three."

There were a couple more rounds of various lung tests. The same battery of tests they subjected her to daily. Apparently, her lungs had taken quite the hit and scarring with the whole rapid aging to near death thing.

Then, it was lumbar puncture time. This was not routine.

Brin had been subjected to dozens of these as kid for medical experimentation. It wasn't until watching a pre-pulse medical show a few years ago that she learned the name and purpose of the procedure. Until then, it had only been 'massive needle jammed into your spine'.

It was as bad as she remembered, if not worse, but Brin endured it with gritted her teeth and kept her complaints to herself.

"Good girl," Dr. Morgan said, squeezing her shoulder, once it was done. He jotted down a few notes in her file, but didn't share them aloud with her.

Brin had questioned Morgan early on about other results. He had fobbed her off, saying "Just focus on getting better and resting, pet, not the numbers or the words, that's my job."

"Sorry, sir," she had replied, intentionally docile and meek, so that he wouldn't overthink her curiosity and put away her file. It didn't work. He put it away, and kept it away for several days, until he apparently forgot about her curiosity or presumed that she had forgotten.

That night, Brin grabbed her paper file from the end of the bed and pursued it at her leisure, gained little insight from the abbreviated medical jargon but a sense of satisfaction at being in the loop.

Erikson caught her in the act. He smirked and plucked the file out of her hands and put it in a locked filing cabinet. "Night time reading?"

Presumably, he must have played some part in the file being accidently left lying out to have such impeccable timing. Dammit. He was good at his job.

"Something like that."

"Better stick to approved literature," he cautioned. "This is need-to-know info only and you don't, I'm afraid."

Brin nodded, wanting to argue that it was her body and her right, but decided to cut her losses while she was ahead. "Yes, sir."

Erikson gave her a long searching look, giving her plenty of space to dig herself deeper, but Brin kept her disagreement to herself. Erikson did not recognise, and would not tolerate, any arguments against her being anything more than just Manticore property whose functionality was only relevant to handlers and not herself. Brin didn't want another lecture on this. They had already covered this ground.

"Are you up for a night-time stroll?" Erikson asked, dropping the issue. At her nod, he tossed her a cloth bag that had some clothes - tracksuit, sneakers and a hoodie. All too large.

"Up and at 'em, solider," he quipped before leaving her alone to struggle with the laces and zips. Her head felt woozy and throbbed and her fingers were clumsy and uncoordinated. Even as an infant, she hadn't been this slow or bad at dressing herself.

Erikson was in the hallway, slouched against the wall and texting on his phone, like a bored teenager, when Brin finally made it out. He didn't comment on the time it took her to get dressed, but he certainly mentally noted it.

"Texting your girlfriend?" she snarked.

"That would 'boyfriend' as in a boy who is a friend with benefits," Erikson corrected, finished the text and put the phone away.

"And yet you're here with me," Brin observed, setting off at a snail's pace with Erikson, and struggling to keep up and get oxygen into her lungs.

She had been bed-bound until now, so this was her first time confronted with the extent of her weakness. It was soul destroying. She enjoyed the fantasy that she was okay and just luxuriating and tricking them, but nope, she was just pathetic and weak.

Erikson took them outside to the smoking area and lit up a cigarette while Brin rested against a wall and resented his functioning lungs that he was carelessly damaging. There was an X5 already out there, pacing back and forth, looking bored.

"Aww, a threesome not one-on-one action," said the young man, pretending to be disappointed. Then, he seemed to register who Brin was and sounded somewhat hostile. "You're one of the 09ers."

"734, 494," Erikson introduced, laconically. He pointed his lit cigarette at 494. "I want you to be a tour guide, mentor and handler, to get her through the re-integration culture shock and operational ASAP."

"Fine," 494 agreed, looking none-too-happy about the prospect, but not outright disagreeing.

"Why him?" Brin questioned.

"Because I'm one step ahead of you in the programme," said 494, arms crossed and still hostile, but maybe thawing a little bit on the attitude.

"What did you do?"

"The unfortunate luck to be a twin of one of you lot. The one going around slaughtering norms. They took him away to get tested," said Erikson, seeing that 494 didn't feel inclined to answer.

They. Not we. Interesting choice of wording. Whose team was Erikson on? Brin got the impression that Erikson spent most of his time at the Wyoming base and visited the other bases sporadically. He seemed tight with Lydecker, much tighter than he was with Renfro.

"Ben? 493?" Brin queried and looked 494 up and down appraisingly.

So, this is what Ben looked like all grown up? He turned out handsome with long eyelashes, freckles and piercing green eyes. Disregarding, you know, the whole murdering business.

That was unfortunate. But, hey, shitty childhood, it wasn't completely his fault. Manticore had a lot of blame there. Brin had the same childhood, true, but she hadn't been the imaginative and sensitive dreamer that Ben had been, so it was harder to fuck up her mind from poet to killer.

"Yup. I'm the good twin," said 494.

Erikson made a vague non-committal noise at this assertion.

"Do I have a twin?" Brin asked.

Brin tried to imagine 735 but couldn't conjure up anything other than a Manticore-sanctioned automaton. One that probably hated her because that bitch surely got hella of a psy-ops ride after the escape. Not somebody Brin wanted to meet on base.

"Not here," 494 confirmed. He counted off the twins on his fingers. "It's just me, 600, 453. 207 and 211 didn't make it."

Brin studied Erikson. His expression was carefully inscrutable. This, presumably, was another one of his studies – looking at behavioural and personality differences between the twins. There was definitely a 735 in the third base. Brin didn't need the confirmation. She just _knew_. That's why Erikson was investing so much time and energy in her.

"I'm not at liberty to say."

That sounded an awful lot like yes. There was a third base somewhere. Presumably that housed said twin.

"Right."

"I'll leave you folks to it," Erikson said, stubbing out the cigarette and turning to go back inside.

"Wait!" said Brin, alarmed at this sudden disappearance act, and the implications of her out wandering at night time and the unthinkable consequences. "What do I – am I supposed to go back to med bay? Am I even supposed to be out here unsupervised?"

"I thought you didn't like orders and could make up your own mind all by yourself," said Erikson.

"Guess not," Brin mumbled.

"The pass on your lanyard you have on gives you temporary clearance to wander freely. Just report back by 5 am," said Erikson.

"I didn't get a pass," 494 protested.

"You hardly need one to commit your misdemeanours and crimes, young man," said Erikson.

"True, sir," 494 agreed, entirely unapologetic for whatever hijinks he got up to in his free time. Once Erikson was gone, 494 sized Brin up. "So, look what the cat dragged in after all these years. What's up with that?"

"Made a mistake. Spent years pretending I didn't," Brin lied, wanting to make new friends more than she wanted to be honest about herself. "Lydecker offered me a wiped slate if I came back without hysterics. Here I am. Sans trouble. That's the only thing keeping me way. Psy-ops is a bitch; you know?"

"Right," said 494, turning her words over, searching for falsehood and fabrication, and apparently finding the story to be authentic. Because he was a good little X5, he couldn't comprehend things like freedom and choice and liberty. Returning just seemed like the only reasonable option to him.

And that was the start of their beautiful friendship, a relationship founded and facilitated by Erikson, but one that was turning out to be fun and authentic, and a silver lining in the black hellhole that was Manticore. Not that Brin should complain on that front given all the special treatment she hadn't exactly earned with the defecting stint.

She was only subjected to an hour psy-ops treatment - the minimum session - before they released her into the general transgenic population. It wasn't enough to do any real damage or warp her thoughts. It was only supposed to remind Brin to keep up her charade of meek cooperation. Mission accomplished because that sixty minute session was brutal. Brin had no interest in revisiting the experience.

Brin had her own bedroom - a tiny, spartan cell that locked from the outside rather than the inside, yes, but it was private and en-suite. There was a window (it opened only two inches but a window nonetheless). And the door was only locked after lights-out, otherwise Brin was technically free to wander. It was literally the nicest bedroom of Brin's life. On the outside, her digs has always been sketchy: too many roommates of both the human and rodent variety, general depilation - damp, grim, mouldy, intermittent heat and electricity - most were illegal squats. But this room with its measly six square was all hers.

In an ideal world, Brin would be surfing on a beach in Hawaii. However, since that wasn't a feasible option, Brin was willing to choose her current set up over psy-ops. For now, this meant catch-up training sessions with the weirdo X7s and freedom to socialise with X5s during meals and rec-time. And keeping up the illusion that was an obedient little automaton.

Brin, if she did say so herself, was remarkably compliant and put on an excellent show of being docile and submissive while harbouring all her own thoughts and opinions. She knew that the committee were pleased with her behaviour and progress. Erikson saw right through it, of course, and pointed this fact out to her, but he seemed unconcerned so long as she was playing ball. And presumably Lydecker too though Brin hadn't seen him since the visit in med-bay.

* * *

 **Lydecker**

Lydecker was too busy with other commitments to oversee Brin's rehabilitation and re-integration at the Seattle base of operations, and didn't see her again for nearly a month.

One week in med-bay. One week on light release. A fortnight of intensive training and drilling with little reprieve or respite against the medical recommendation.

It was impossible to fit ten years into this tight span of time, but there was no reason why they couldn't manage a couple. It was the best-of-the-best that fled in '09 so Lydecker was confident that Brin would flourish under this handling. If she didn't, well, a few days in med-bay and back at it again. Sink or swim.

On his return to the Seattle base, Lydecker tried to summon Brin only to find out that her whereabouts wasn't immediately known. As a potential flight risk, it seemed that Brin should be on a much tighter leash. Instead, she was encouraged and free to participate in afterhours training of her choosing and did so enough that no one kept close tabs on what training or where.

An X6 (Brin was yet to regularly join the X5s, but had quickly been promoted from X7s) was able to report that Brin was last seen in the pool. True enough, Brin was in the middle of the pool, floating on her back with arms and legs outstretched in a star shape. Her hair was loose around her head. The water was still and calm around her, indicating that she hadn't moved for some time.

Lydecker knew that she heard and recognised his footsteps echoing on the tiles even though she didn't react. He stopped at the edge of the pool and watched his prodigal X5. Her eyes snapped open and met his.

"I'd imagine this was not quite the laps the trainer had in mind when he approved this afterhours activity," Lydecker commented.

"No, sir, I'd imagine not," Brin agreed.

"Get under, static apnea hold, and stay until my signal."

Lydecker expected some reluctance, if not outright refusal, and was pleasantly surprised and suspicious to get immediate compliance. No backchat, not sighing, no mulling it over, just obedience.

Poor performance, unfortunately, followed this good behaviour. Lydecker hadn't planned to give a signal at all, and was waiting for Brin to give up. Still, he had expected Brin to accomplish ten to fifteen minutes underwater holding her breath before emerging. Brin managed a little over 5 minutes.

Not merely inadequate, but outright dismal, but apparently, an honest best effort. Upon surfacing, Brin struggled to catch her breath, nearly choking as she gasped for air. She was making a worrying high-pitch wheezing sound, but all the same was successfully threading the water and didn't seem overly distressed or at risk of drowning.

"I don't believe I gave a signal," Lydecker remarked.

"N-no, sir," Brin managed, still a little breathless, sounding shaky.

"Then you'd better have a good explanation for surfacing without permission," Lydecker continued.

"Ineptitude from dereliction of duty," said Brin, still not breathing regularly.

No apology or justification. It bordered on hostility, but remained respectful enough that Lydecker didn't call her out on her attitude. This was Brin at her most authentic: matter-of-fact, impartial and borderline antagonistic, completely without the disingenuous deference mask.

"Practise makes perfect. If you had been consistently doing this and not shirking your training then I wouldn't have been a witness to such a sorry attempt," said Lydecker. It was an obligatory telling-off.

Brin nodded.

"Again, when you're ready," Lydecker instructed. "I want at least six minutes this time."

Another head nod. Brin's wheezing was loud in her otherwise silent pool. It took another two minutes for Brin to breathe normally again. Another minute to psych herself up for round two. She kicked back under the surface without commentary.

Once under, Lydecker radioed Erikson for medical attention and kept an eye on the clock. He made a hand signal at 5 minutes. Brin burst up through the water on cue. She was much worse this time. Her breath came in ragged shallow gasps. She was coughing now, spluttering up water, flailing. Her expression was the panicked one of a someone drowning and desperate.

She must have stayed under too long and swallowed water. Unlikely to life threatening, but certainly unpleasant. Lydecker made the right call allowing her up after 5 minutes – it meant successful cooperation than failure and disobedience.

Longer again, for Brin to catch her breath and recover. As soon as she was able, she kicked over to the side of the pool and hauled herself out. She stayed at the side, legs still in the water, shivering and wheezing and bedraggled.

"I don't believe I gave you permission to get out of the pool," Lydecker commented.

"I'm not out, sir," Brin mumbled. She kicked her legs in the water to prove her point.

"Well then, no reason for you not to do another round," said Lydecker lightly.

Erikson arrived in an unhurried manner, armed with a towel, cup of coffee, stethoscope and inhaler. He shook his head in disagreement, but Brin was clearly in no state to get back in just yet. Her shivering turned into full-body shaking. The pool was unheated and the air was cold.

"Hey Brin," Erikson said, sitting down beside her.

Erikson wrapped the towel around her shoulders and put the coffee to one side. He conducted a quick examination: checking her heart rate and readjusting the stethoscope between her back and chest and listening to her lungs for several breaths. Lydecker didn't need a stethoscope to hear that her breathing was abnormal – not so laboured, but still wheezy and struggling.

"Chest pain? Vomiting?" Erikson queried.

"Chest pain."

Erikson demonstrated how to use the inhaler and then handed it over along with the coffee. "A double-whammy to dilate the air passageways," he commented.

It wasn't typical to provide a medical explanation, not that anything about Brin's re-integration had been typical. Erikson had Brin take several puffs on the inhaler and drink the coffee before he listened to Brin's lungs again. He nodded and gave Lydecker a thumbs up.

"I'll need a scan to confirm fluid in lungs, but I'm happy to call it: secondary drowning. We'll keep an eye on it, maybe get her on a ventilator, but she's probably fine with the inhaler and overnight rest," said Erikson. He paused, then added: "Morgan is the respiratory expert - he should formally diagnose."

"Round three. Six minutes," said Lydecker.

Erikson frowned, but didn't contradict the orders. For her part, Brin shook her head but the verbal disagreement never came. While Brin didn't immediately move to get back into the pool, she did relinquish the inhaler and coffee cup and slipped back into the pool.

"You're such a hard-ass," Erikson commented, once Brin was under water.

"She'll think twice about slacking off next time."

"By all accounts, she _is_ working hard. Being well-behaved."

"Not hard enough," Lydecker maintained.

"Terrorising and torturing won't bring around those effects. It will undermine the progress made to date."

"Give the signal in six minutes. If she comes up sooner, let her rest and repeat as needed until she achieves it."

Lydecker didn't stick around to watch it. He assumed that Erikson would undermine him. It didn't matter. Presumably, Brin saw Erikson as the good cop, and this would only cement her belief.

* * *

 **Erikson**

"Lydecker will join us," Erikson warned Brin.

He watched for her reaction. It was subtle: a slight hitch of breath, muscles tensing up, her heart skipped a beat. _Anxiety_. Brin acted somewhat withdrawn around Lydecker, but she hadn't seemed particularly worried or frightened.

Her near drowning two weeks obviously had quite impact – just like Lydecker intended. It had been an unnecessary spectacle, one that Lydecker didn't even stick around to watch, which made it all the worse.

Erikson signalled for Brin to surface once he was sure Lydecker was gone. She was already struggling, presumably her worst performance yet, but she lingered in the pool, threading water.

"That's not…not even close to six minutes, s-sir," she managed through gasps.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

"But-"

"Close enough," Erikson had reassured, seeing Brin was reluctant to disobey Lydecker even in his absence. "Our secret. I promise."

"I'll work on my time," Brin had promised.

"You'd better. If it's anything under ten minutes when Lydecker graces us with his presence again, you're in trouble. That's another promise."

Brin, Erikson knew, had gone back to the pool the next evening and every evening after that and presumably hit the ten-minute target. She didn't report otherwise and Erikson didn't ask. He doubted that Lydecker would drag Brin to the pool for a demo.

There were other more pertinent items on the agenda for their meeting.

Lydecker appeared soon enough. Brin jumped to attention, nearly tipping the chair she was sitting on over in her haste. Her expression was blank – no sign of fear. Lydecker gestured for Brin to sit and took a seat himself.

"Movie time," said Erikson.

He turned his monitor around to face the other two and scooted his chair to the side so they could all watch the footage together. He had already seen it, of course, as had Lydecker, while Brin lived through it, but it was a necessary group exercise.

The footage was of a recent meeting between Renfro and Brin. Renfro had hauled Brin into her office for an unscheduled and unauthorised inspection. She was trying to stir things up and may well have succeeded.

"I'm not convinced you genuinely turned over this new leaf, 734," Renfro said in the video.

Brin stayed silent, wisely recognising the danger of agreeing or arguing this observation, and kept a blank expression focused on the wall behind Renfro.

"Why the sudden change?" Renfro pressed.

"I recognised my aberrant mental patterns and understand that I must manage them, ma'am," replied Brin.

Erikson smirked, recognising some familiar wording from himself in this answer, and threw a sidelong look at Brin. "Oh yeah?"

Brin, the real-life version, narrowed her eyes back at him. " _Yeah_."

"Touché," said Erikson, holding up his hands, still smirking and antagonistic, but not pressing the issue any further.

"Are you ready for duty?" Renfro asked in the video.

"Med and psy-ops have cleared me for duty, ma'am," said Brin, avoiding the obvious trap of giving an opinion, even the apparently correct one.

"Tell me about your rogue unit."

"Whereabouts unknown, ma'am."

"I see that you have an opportunity to rectify this situation working in the field under Colonel Lydecker to apprehend the rogues," said Renfro, tapping her long-manicured nails on a manila file. She shoved it across the table.

On video, Brin couldn't stop herself glancing down at the file, but otherwise didn't react visibly to this news, didn't open the file, pass comment or give anything away.

Erikson paused the video was an unnecessary flourish and turned to Brin. "How did that make you _feel_?"

"Thrilled, it feels so good to give something back in return for the kindness, consideration and redemption that I have been shown," said Brin sarcastically.

The sentiment was not just insincere and mocking, which Erikson expected, but it was downright poisonous and vicious. It was a threat. This was a reason that sensible people didn't keep leopards as pets and the idiots got maimed.

The reason why Erikson was still hanging around Seattle base. While Brin was compliant and polite enough, one would be loath to use the words 'meek', 'malleable' or 'eager to please' that were oft-used descriptions for the simplified X5s. It made her interesting.

"Is that so?" asked Lydecker not fazed by this response.

"Yes, sir." Textbook response and inflection. The attitude dialled back down again.

Brin, for all her swagger and snark, didn't really do conflict with authority. She was walking contradiction of personality traits.

"Hearing about the mission like that – what was that like for you?" Erikson asked.

Brin shrugged, but seemed to be considering the question in her silence, her foot jingling under the table.

Erikson unpaused the video without any further comment.

"Open it," snapped Renfro.

Brin obeyed. Inside, there were significant details of the Ben operation, alongside evidence gleaned on several of the others, including Max, but distinctly missing intel on Brin herself. Brin looked through it all systematically and blankly, not giving anything away, just business-like and remote.

"I'm concerned that you might not be suited for something like this," said Renfro. "This is an opportunity for a fresh start, not dwelling on past failures, and I would recommend alternative function."

"She's not wrong," real-life Brin acknowledged. Her tone was subdued.

Erikson paused the video and exchanged a look with Lydecker. He knew exactly what Brin was insinuating, as did Lydecker, and any reasonable human being, but he wanted it in her own words from her mouth for means of his own psychological trickery.

"Despite evidence to the contrary, I'm not psychic, you gotta be a more explicit with the point you're making, Brin," said Erikson.

"I don't want to help with the mission." No attitude, no dithering, just basic facts laid bare.

"Why didn't you tell her that? 'Cause I'm guessing you don't and she's gonna get a little pissy about her your non-response."

Brin threw a searching look at Lydecker before answering. "If it's what _he_ wants, then I gave my word to cooperate and obey so kind of tough shit for me. Private objections only. I figured I would end up here soon enough so here's my objection."

"Objection noted," said Lydecker.

Lydecker, presumably, objected himself. That's exactly what Renfro was angling towards with this stunt – either Lydecker or Brin to expose the fake re-indoctrination for what it was, thereby getting Brin back into her clutches and insinuating culpability on his end to advance her long-term agenda.

Lydecker was well able to twist Renfro's machinations to suit his own ends. By pretending to capitulate Brin on this, he'd gain a degree of goodwill and indenture. And he didn't even have to leverage an inch from his own position.

"Unofficially, you're off the case," Lydecker conceded.

Unguarded surprise flickered through Brin's expression. "Unofficially, sir?"

"On-the-books, for Renfro and the committee, I want you on this case, not only cooperative and compliant but gung-ho and zealous. Understood?"

"Uh, yes, sir," said Brin, none too convincingly, still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but Erikson knew that Lydecker still appreciated the agreeable sentiment.

"Unofficially, you will be present, looking pretty and doing nothing. _Nothing,"_ said Lydecker pointedly.

No help. No sabotage. A neutral stalemate from two opposing desires. It could work. Or it could be botched. It was an acceptable enough holding pattern to keep Brin out of Renfro's clutches at the Seattle base for the foreseeable future.

Brin nodded. "I understand, sir."

"Shall we continue?" said Erikson, breaking the moment, and hitting play without waiting for response.

On screen, Renfro berated Brin's non-response and continued her interrogation. Erikson sped it up and they watched it at double-speed until the end.

"How did that go for you, Brin?"

Lydecker didn't usually involve himself in Erikson's sessions. Generally, it was preferable to be unaware of the methods, because then he couldn't disapprove of them, so this line of questioning was likely as unexpected to him as it was for Brin. He chose not to comment, and just sit back and watch the show.

"I don't know," Brin snapped. "Tell me what I did wrong and I won't do it again."

"I didn't say you did anything wrong," said Erikson, mildly. "Why would you jump to that assumption? Do you think you did something wrong?"

"Oh so you're gonna give me a sticker and lollipop and praise my good behaviour?" retorted Brin. "Is that how you run the show these days? That's how you handle dogs, right? Reward good, ignore bad. They figure it out eventually. X5 is just a sophisticated dog so makes sense."

The surge of anger was most likely a coping mechanism for fear. It was the worst response though. Bad attitude invited retaliation from the brass, while terror would be quietly tolerated, and the so the cycle could perpetuate at Brin's expense.

Erikson noted Lydecker's body language stiffen at this outburst. Lydecker hadn't reacted to the sarcasm earlier. He was unexpectedly tolerant of smart-asses - but there was a line and Brin had crossed it with that tirade against Manticore.

Erikson quickly interjected before Lydecker could come down on Brin like a ton of bricks. "And what do you suppose the policy is on 'deflecting behaviour', Brin? Please answer the original question first – how did that go for you?"

"Fine, I guess," said Brin, sounding uncertain. She looked between the two men as though trying to guess the right answer in their expressions.

"I'd say so too," Erikson agreed. "Would you change anything? We could do a fun role play where I wear a powersuit and blonde wig and pretend to be Renfro…"

"I don't know. What did her report say?"

"Report?" Erikson echoed, in a vague tone.

"She had to log and summarise our meeting," said Brin, matter-of-fact, despite having no business knowing such information, let alone demanding it. She must have been watching the doctors and nurses quite carefully in med-bay when they assumed she wasn't watching.

Erikson went into the CRM system on his computer and pulled up Brin's file to read Renfro's observations. Aloud he read: "Presented as docile and subdued with evidence of incognizance. Cannot recommend this unit for independent operating procedures against preliminary optimistic medical and psychological observations. Revise conduct competency after a period of activity under direct supervision of Director Renfro or Director Lydecker."

Brin looked quite affronted by this description but commented: "then I'd say that I did well enough."

Lydecker tilted the screen towards himself and skimmed the rest of the logs. These were mostly uninformative. Erikson's redacted and abridged case report said only 'unlikely to engage in escape attempts, de-escalate restraint protocols from 5 to 3' and 'will be tractable and obedient within 2-4 weeks with regular and appropriate personalised handling'. The medical and training updates demonstrated adequate test results and behaviour.

Officially, Lydecker was not authorised to access the Seattle files and this idle perusal was in direct defiance of company policy. Manticore ran on a need-to-know policy adapted from military and clinical practises. He had 100% access to Wyoming case files. Renfro had 100% access to Seattle. Erikson's position allowed him access selected information from both bases and Texas.

"Yeah. Good job, Brin." Erikson scooted her chair back behind the desk. He opened the drawer and with a flourish pulled out a packet of colourful stickers and giant red lollypop.

Brin's jaw dropped. Erikson, of course, had predicted a snide comment along those lines and had come prepared. He studied the stickers and selected one with a cheerful star that said 'super star'. He peeled it off and stuck it onto Brin's shirt. He clapped her on the shoulder. "You earned it, champ. Keep up the good work."

Brin peered down at the sticker and deadpanned: "Hooray."

Lydecker, for his part, looked perfectly stone-faced. This definitely wasn't an accepted Manticore method. It wasn't any method other than Erikson getting shits and giggles out of it.

He planned to give Rob the sticker of labcoat-wearing starfish that said star scientist this evening. Unlike the starfish, Rob shunned safety glasses and lab coat, so the sticker wasn't deserved on the grounds of health and safety. Or even timely completion of grad school. His just-published first-author Nature paper deserved recognition. Erikson glanced at the time. He needed to nab 494 for a quick catch-up and then hit the road if he wanted to make the dinner reservation.

"Meeting adjourned, folks."


End file.
